I enjoy spinning on occasion, but sometimes I just don’t want to bring out my Schacht-Reeves saxony. The Dreaming Robots Electric Eel Wheel 6, or EEW6, is the perfect solution! The e-spinner is small and portable, yet holds a serious amount of fibre. Each bobbin holds about 8 oz of fibre, so you can spin a lot.
I didn’t want to use my Really Good fibre just in case I messed up somewhere, so I dove into the stash and pulled out one of my lesser-loved fiber club deliveries: Qarth.
Qarth is an 80/20 Merino/Silk blend from Into the Whirled’s July 2013 LUXE club. The fibre itself is gorgeous – but the colours just aren’t to my taste. I’m into pinks and purples. Cyan, olive and mustard…not so much. They’re an odd combination, and I understand their inspiration (a still from the TV show Game of Thrones), but they sure aren’t colours I would have chosen for myself.
I started my spinning experiment in a Twitch livestream. If you’d like to see the unboxing of the e-spinner, you can find it here. It took a little longer than I thought it would, but it was worth it. The EEW6 spins like a dream. If you’re worried about being uncoordinated and unable to move your hands to draft wool while moving your feet, then this is definitely the spinning wheel for you.
The Yarn Structure
The yarn came together really well. I chose to make a 3-ply yarn, and spun it fine enough to possibly make socks or a shawl. I haven’t counted the length yet, but I’m sure there’s a couple hundred yards at least.
To distribute the colour a little more evenly, I chose a fractal spin. First, divide the length of the combed top into 3 parts. The first part is spun as-is. It will have the longest colour repeats.
The second strand of top is split into two parts, and each section spun one after the other so the colour pattern repeats twice.
Strand number three is divided into four and spun one after the other. This will have the fastest colour repeats.
The yarn can look really interesting when spun this way. While I’m not fond of the individual colours, and probably wouldn’t choose to make something for myself out of it, the resulting yarn is perfect for someone who loves olive and yellow colours. I think it came out well…and into the handspun stash it will go until it tells me what it wants to be or to whom it wishes to be given.
I have plenty more fibre where this came from, and with my two spinning wheels – my saxony and my e-spinner, I don’t have an excuse to NOT do some spinning!
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