Me and My Trusty Traveller (part 2)

So, who or what is my Trusty Traveller?

It is, of course, my Ashford Traveller spinning wheel. I chose this wheel for several reasons -

1. It is made by Ashford who have an excellent reputation for all things spinny.
2. It is relatively compact and can therefore fit into Misty Cottage.
3. It is available as a double treadle model so I don't have to work in a one-sided way with just one leg doing the work.

Having made this decision, I rang the lovely people at Wingham Wool Work and placed my order. A mere 48 hours later, as I brought the children home from their music lessons on a cold, crisp, sunny, January morning,

 there by the Misty Cottage front door was an enormous box. A few hours and a fair amount of head scratching later, my Trusty Traveller was assembled and ready to go.

Initially I spent quite a while just treadling to get used to the feel of the wheel and then had a go at spinning a Jacob fleece that I had been given and had been using for stuffing dolls and fish. As any spinner will tell you, my first yarns were 'novelty' in the extreme! Tight and chunky. However, spinning is highly addictive and the more you spin, the more control you gain over the fibre and the wheel, so it wasn't too long before I was producing usable (thought not saleable) yarn.