A while back, we bought a cheap Ashford Traditional. We have a few wheels and it was never really intended for much spinning, but it was a good price, you know how it goes.

When we got her home, we realised that the Traddy just isn’t for us, not in a house full of beautiful artisan wheels, so we set about turning her into something we could use.

Let me just say straight off that Ashford Traditionals are built to last. We really had to put some muscle (and some heavy tools)  into pulling it apart.

Once we broke the back of the beast, we extended the wheel axle enough to pass the front leg, then constructed and added a simple skein winder, with dowels and holes set at different diameters.

Now, it’s very easy to treddle up a skein that’s super simple to measure, just count the revolutions and multiply by a metre.