My prayers were answered in one word:
Vespera from
Heavenly Handspinning.
Having produced reasonably quickly on my
Kromski Symphony for years, I was content. However, as time passed and my fiber stash has grown exponentially, I began looking for a faster spinning production method. After the obligatory searches for e-spinners and watching many YouTube videos of various manufacturers, I settled on the
Vespera. My purchase decision was driven by what I felt would offer me: (1) the quickest learning curve, (2) the ability to spin all weights, (3) the ability to spin huge amounts of lace weight yarn very quickly, (4) a price point that agreed with my pocketbook and, most importantly, (5) reliable support from the manufacturer. The
Vespera fit the bill perfectly and within a few days, this simple little wonder of an E-Spinner has stolen my heart. It also has become the most valuable tool in my studio, in terms of time-savings and production speed.
My first day with "Zoe" (my
Vespera) was spent in getting acquainted with her and giving her a bath with
Howard Feed-N-Wax. I couldn't bear that she looked thirsty in her unfinished form. Honestly, simply taking the time to give her a "drink" with an initial coating of a nourishing wax really made the beautiful wood grain pop. I find her quite lovely in her current condition. Having neither the time nor the inclination to finish her beyond "feeding" her with a nourishing wax, I moved right on to getting acquainted with her tension and the speed increase. Zoe and I were made for each other. She quite patiently and obligingly spun beautifully at various tension adjustments and speeds. By the end of Day 1, my new
Vespera, Zoe, and I were fast friends. By the end of Day 2, I was able to ply a weeks worth of spinning (done on my Symphony) and I was, indeed, one happy camper!
My one difficulty with the Vespera is understanding the workings of the drive band. Everything in my spinning education over the years has taught me that drive bands should not be tight, bearing in mind that the extent of my spinning education has been with double drive wheels. The original band provided with the wheel worked perfectly. Unfortunately, I broke that band by attempting to nip off some of the extruding melted poly material at the join, which seemed to make the band slip as it passed around the motor pulley. I rejoined the original band but that seemed to make it too tight and what looked like sawdust, from the groove in the bobbin, littered the table below the Vespera and a glob of it went into the motor. After frantically using a can of compressed air to blow the sawdust out of the motor, I sat and stared at Zoe for a good long time, trying to understand how much belt tension she wanted. I have read several posts which seem to imply that it doesn't really matter how tight the drive band is, yet I find that very hard to believe, based on my sawdust memories. Apparently, several people use the small, rubber drive band that came with the original sewing machine motor. While, personally, I feel that is a bit too tight for the Vespera, particularly if you're planning to ply (which requires that you twist the drive band), maybe my understanding of e-spinners is lacking in appropriate drive band tension. I'm hoping to get some comments to this post to enlighten me on that topic.
Finally, as far as I'm concerned, the above drive band issue is tiny compared to the many pluses of this little wonder. My only other wish for improvement to the Vespera would be to extend the flyer arms to the end of the bobbin so that it's not required to remove and turn the bobbin in order to fill it. When you are spinning as fast as this spinner allows, the need to stop, remove the bobbin, turn it, and replace the bobbin to simply fill the other end of the bobbin gets somewhat annoying, as it occurs very frequently at these speeds.
All that being said, I love, love, love Zoe, my new
Vespera! I couldn't live without her now. If you're thinking of buying an e-spinner, look no further than
Heavenly Handspinning.
