Wednesday, April 25, 2007

My New Toy...

I got an early Mother's Day present... or maybe a belated birthday present, since we're right in between the two.

I have been looking at alternatives to drop spindles that would let me crank out yarn a bit faster but still be fun and fit within my budget as well as my tiny living room. I looked into
charkhas and possibly making my own wheel or charkha.

Enter the
Mother Marion kick spindle. While I automatically fell in love with the idea, the original models, however, are still a bit out of my price range.

I decided to look for them on eBay and found someone whose engineer husband not only figured out how to make them but improve on them. He added ball bearings to reduce friction so the spindle can spin longer between kicks. I've included links to their YouTube videos on the left that demonstrate how these work.

After patiently answering my many questions (including a "yes" to whether I could buy one directly) I settled on a wooden model with a scalloped wheel. My total cost was about half of what I'd pay for an original Mother Marion, not to mention I'm plain impressed by innovative these are. I should be getting it pretty soon.

4 comments:

Jess said...

I love it! I want one!!

kimma1986 said...

Hi,
Could you share where you purchased your mother marion spinner? Now that you've had it awhile how do you like it? Have you used a drop spindle? How do they compare for ease of use? Thanks for any info you can provide.

Elaine said...

I recently bought a Gratia too. I'm very happy with it. For me it was about the price and function. I've longed for a "new" wheel for years and couldn't see the justification for the $$$. These models are great, they do the job and I can spend the rest of the $$$$ on FIBER :-)

doreen said...

Yes Jan is wonderful. I adore my Heavenly Handspinning custom #4 Meggie kick spindle. I found her on Etsy under ford4him, but she also sells from her website www.heavenlyhandspinning.com. I ordered my Fidelis wheel and Meggie the same day and they arrived well within a week! They have made handspinning go from a dream to reality for me!