Ariadne
According to Greek mythology, Ariadne was the daughter of Pasiphaë and King Minos of Crete. Ariadne fell in love at first sight with Theseus, a man who volunteered to kill the Minotaur living at the center of Mino's Labyrinth. After he killed the Minotaur, Ariadne helped Theseus by giving him a ball of the red thread she was spinning, and a sword to enable him to mark his path and find his way of the labyrinth. In some versions of the myth, Theseus abandons her and she later marries Dionysus who makes are immortal and a goddess. My Ariadne is no goddess, but she comes close and is a beautiful as one. I really don't have that much time to spin right now, especially with all the things I'm doing in designing and for Handicraft Café, and with my tendonitis that has been flaring up. Oh, my poor Ashford has been so neglected. However, when I saw Ariadne, I could not resist!
I bought this wheel from a woman who has a small farm with a couple of horses and 3 alpaca. I had to drive pretty far to get the wheel, but it's totally worth it. I couldn't even find information or photos on this wheel in an internet search, and I don't read Dutch, so searching Dutch pages was certainly out of the question.
According to the previous owner of the wheel, this is made by a company in the Netherlands called Ariadne. She lugged this wheel all the way from the Netherlands 2 years ago, in hopes of learning to spin alpaca fiber sheared from her own animals. Because I had driven so far, she gave me a small discount from her price, threw in a set of vintage carders, a vintage nostepine, and a giant bag of natural white alpaca fiber. Because I have many other spinning friends, I also bought a giant bag of natural red alpaca fiber from her so that I can give some fibers to my friends. The only catch is that the bags if fiber are dusty and need to be washed and combed, for which I will need a industrial dusk mask if I don't want to get shipped to the hospital for an asthma attack.
I bought this wheel from a woman who has a small farm with a couple of horses and 3 alpaca. I had to drive pretty far to get the wheel, but it's totally worth it. I couldn't even find information or photos on this wheel in an internet search, and I don't read Dutch, so searching Dutch pages was certainly out of the question.
Isn't she beautiful? According to someone on a spinner's group, Ariadne started production around 1975, so it's not exactly an old or vintage style wheel, though the owner had advertised it as "antique." (But many people just think all spinning wheels are antique.) One of the features that I love about my Ariadne is that the lazy kate sits on the wheel and can be turned out (as shown) or more towards the wheel for more compact storage. The tensioning system on this one is interesting, and it took me some time to figure it out. I don't know if you can see it from the photos, but there's a metal hook holding the flyer. Underneath the hook is a screw and a spring used to tighten the flyer onto the wheel by clamping down on the hook.
Labels: spinning
posted by Anne at
11:04 AM
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1 Comments:
She is BEAUTIFUL! Congratulations :D
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