I’ve been practising some new methods for carding fibres for fancy yarns and ‘art’yarns. Using a blending board is good for finer fibres and mixing colours, but I’ve gone back to my drum carder today when making textural batts.

Once I’d made the first batt I couldn’t resist spinning it into yarn. I decided to use my Ashford Traditional (Hamish) which my handy husband helped me convert to a double drive. It’s worked really well so far, but I seemed to have problems today.

I searched for help on the internet and found these sites useful: https://boogieblather.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/double-driving/

https://nzspinningwheels.wordpress.com/spinning-wheel-ailments/

The yarn would not draw onto the bobbin, it over-twisted and the flyer kept falling off. I was getting very frustrated.

So back to basics, I took the flyer apart and reset it. I then decided the drive band was too loose, so that came off and was re-tied. Still rubbish. Then I realised I had the bobbin in the wrong way round, with the drive band on the large whorl! Problem 1 solved, it now took the yarn onto the bobbin. But the flyer was still dropping off.

Now it was time to address the maidens – I’d noticed they were a bit loose and easily swiveling around. Whilst tightening the back one (it has an open-top bearing so doesn’t need to swivel), I noticed that the mother-of-all was also a bit wobbly, so tightened those screws as well. I’ve left the front maiden free to swivel so I can remove the bobbin easily.

Which goes to show you should check everything before you start or suffer the consequential frustration!