"Billy" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:
"Billy" wrote in message

I looked for Ashford book of Spinning. An odd experience that, I found
it it from $4 (bad condition) to $240 (that must come with the spinning
wheel, which is what the book is for). Thanks Farml.

Just because it is has "The Ashford" in the title, don't make the mistake
of
thinking that the info it contains is applicable only to the Ashford
wheels
or drop spindles. It's a good book as is the one on weaving.

Have you seen http://www.zombo.com/ ? Wait for the opening screen to
fade out.

What does it do? All I got was the "welcome to Zombo com" verbal message
and then 2 tiny options which, when I tried to select either of them,
just
resulted in a rerun of the verbal message.

I'm sure that the "Ashford book of Spinning" is a good book but it was
my impression that it was written with an Ashford spinning wheel in
mind.

Yes, I thought that was the impression you had gained which is why I posted
again to indicate that it is universally applicable.

Ashford produce various weight spindles and wheels with Scotch tension,
Irish tension, double drive and electric spninners so that covers all the
bases a beginner would come across. The info in the book is applicable
across the board to all wheels and spindles (although I should say that I
don't know about wind wheels as I have no experience of them - but they have
neither the price tag or the availability to attract a beginning spinner
anyway).

As just one example, the book explains how to figure out drive ratios and
although it uses an Ashford wheel to illustrate (even though there is really
no need as anyone who buys an Ashford will either have the manufacturer's
info on what the drive ratios are or could go to the Ashford site to find
out there) you would use exactly that method to find out the ratios of an
antique or any modern wheel.

I have 2 wheels and only one of them is an Ashford, but it is still the best
book I have found for having all the info I need in an easily accessible
format and it was the one I chose to buy after borrowing a lot of spinning
books from the Spinners and Weavers Guild.

The book, paperback, used, averaged $30 - $40 and the local
library doesn't have a copy.

That's too much for a beginning spinner to spend. You don't know yet
whether you'll want to continue or not.

Does your library do inter-library loans at all? I've found that is a great
way of getting access to all sorts of books which are otherwise unattainable
and as a beginner I would advise reading lots of books as sometimes
instructions make no sense in one book but another way of saying the same
thing in another book can suddenly cause one of those 'Eureka' moments.

I looked into the price of an Ashford
spinning wheel and no web site would quote one. At that point I lost
interest.

Possibly as a result of the sub prime washup and they can't keep up with the
exchange rate until they get a firm order????? I'm not sure what the US
dollar is doing against the NZ dollar, but I notice that the exchange rate
for Oz and the US dollar is moving very much in or favour.

Is there a Spinning and Weaving Guild near you at all? They often hire out
wheels to beginners for extended periods so they can learn before they need
to buy.

If you stick with it, the "Spin Off" magazine produced by Interweave press
will become important to you for all sorts of reasons. Check it out at
newsagencies and if you don't see anything to attract your interest or cause
a flutter of excitement, don't even bother trying to learn to spin.

You can thank JoeSB for turning me on to zombo.com. Pretty neat site
isn't it?

No, or not from anything I've seen so far. The jingle is merely irritating
and the site seems to offer nothing but the jingle.