Final project

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Revision as of 17:07, 25 January 2016 by Sirja (talk | contribs) (added background info for final project)
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Portable Spinning wheel


The need

Last fall semester we had a small course on spinning in my school and I absolutely fell in love with it. We started out with a spindle and advanced to a spinning wheel when we had understood the principle of spinning. I spun with a traditional spinning wheel and with a more modern upright spinning wheel. I preferred the upright version so my teacher brought me a travel spinning wheel from an other department so that i could try that out too. It was an Ashford model and relatively small and handy to take to go so I started googling the prices.That was a mistake, I almost fell from my chair. The Asford's models are really expensive and there are not so many global or local manufacturers that make spinning wheels let alone travel ones. I got an old spinning wheel from my mother but the problem with those are that they're really big and hardly not portable. A spindle is of course easy to take along, but I would really like to have a proper spinning wheel that's just as easy to grab on the go.



The Inspiration

I started looking for small spinning wheels that people have made by themselves or have had made by local carpenters or other craftsmen. I didn't find that many designs, but a couple of good ones is better than a bunch of bad ones. The spinning wheel in the first picture is the Asford one I tried at school that started all this. The second one is a small s.w. called Kathryn made by a company called Gaskell. I really liked the shape of it, but not the look of it. Third one is the one I fell in love with. A 91-year-old carpenter made it for the lady hosting the blog based on her needs and general requirements for a spinning wheel. It measures only 17 inches and is extremely adorable (and called Pumpkin). This s.w. is however not very portable, since you can't take it apart. It's a solid piece. And what i wan't from my s.w. design is the same level of compact design with the capability to take it a part to make it really easy to take with me.