Gretchen

And the moment I know a few have been waiting for, the "Gretchen" wheel is officially on the market. Designed specifically for this wheel, the gradual red and wine colorway is by far my favorite finish yet.

Gretchen is a new Merlin Tree RoadBug complete w/ 3 bobbins, orifice hook, on-board oil bottle, attached lazy kate, and 3 direct-drive whorls. She'll ship fully assembled, so you'll just have to take her out of the box, scerw in the flyer and spin, spin, spin!

The idea for the Gretchen wheel actually has origins in a contest held by a Canadian TieDye Wheel owner who held a wheel naming contest on her blog (it's still Hreinn in our catalogs, haha!) Someone suggested "Gretchen" after the song Gretchen am Spinnerade from the lied by Schubert. Being a fan of Goethe's Faust I thought, "Yes, Gretchen totally needs a wheel designed by me just for her." So of course, it's a simple wheel made special through it's beauty. The color is a rich & vibrant red with rising shades of burgundy and wine that draw up from the bottom, symbolizing the darker forces behind the love affair between Gretchen and Faust. The wheel, treadle, flyer, and bobbins are stained a rich reddish-brown.



Here are the RoadBug specs:
WHEEL DIAMETER: 14"
ORIFICE: 3/8", 17-1/8" from the floor at 45 degree angle upward
FLYER: Merlin Tree #2 w/ Hooks (screws off for travel)
BOBBIN CAPACITY: 5-6oz
RATIOS: 7:1, 9:1 & 13:1
WEIGHT: 8.9 lbs
DIMENSIONS: 7"w x 14"l x 16" h (airline carry-on compatible)
WOODS: Baltic Birch ply, ash and cherry
FINAL FINISH: Semi-gloss Polyurethane

PRICE: SOLD

We can stain and finish additional bobbins to match if desired for $12 each. We can also stain/dye to match Jumbo flyer units, niddy-noddies, and stand-alone lazy kates (in both the red oak and the tie-dye finishes.)

Other wheels are available for sale on Etsy. Payment by credit card accepted over the phone or via PayPal.

The Phoenix

It's kind of exciting putting two new custom wheels together in one night! We assembled both "Gretchen" and "The Phoenix" Monday evening amid warm, ridiculously humid temps.
The Phoenix is a new Ashford Traveler complete w/ 4 bobbins, orifice hook, hemp drive band, cotton drive band. She'll ship partially disassembled, but I'm pretty sure it'll be 4 cam bolts and 2 screws and you'll be ready to go.

Her inspiration is a rising phoenix. The main wood components are stained a very dark black/brown to symbolize the ashes, and the treadles and wheels are stained a burgundy, red, orange, and yellow to symbolize the phoenix reborn. There is a braid decoration burnt onto the wheel (front and back) along with the fallen and rising phoenixes on the treadles.

Although the treadles should be able to handle considerable wear before the image is affected, we do recommend stocking feet for this wheel.

Here are the Traveler specs:
WHEEL DIAMETER: 46cm (18")
ORIFICE: 1cm (3/8")
FLYER: Standard w/ Hooks
BOBBIN CAPACITY: 100gm (3-4oz)
RATIOS: 5.5, 10 & 14:1
WEIGHT: 7kg (15lb)
FINAL FINISH: Semi-gloss Polyurethane

PRICE: Private Collection






We can stain and finish additional bobbins to match if. We can also stain/dye to match Jumbo flyer units, niddy-noddies, and stand-alone lazy kates (in both the dark and the tie dye finishes.)

The Idea Fairy

Where do our designs come from? All over. Sometimes we work from patterns purchased with commercial reproduction permissions and a lot of our less expensive designs come from modified existing patterns. When a client contracts a custom wheel we like to talk to them and find their likes, dislikes, favorite colors & animals, what artists do they admire, and so on. Then the brain is allowed to wander.

By far, however, our favorites are the ones that assault us in the night, sneak attack from the horizon, and pester us when we're trying to not be creative. Annoying creatures like this:

This deer-thing has been haunting me through the wall. It's been living on a plate in the antique shop next door since they opened for the summer last month. Today it had to come over to stay in the workshop for a bit. I don't know what it is, but something on this plate has me thinking of wheel designs. Not exactly the same, but definitely inspired by it. I think it's the background design. I dunno. But a wheel is definitely coming out of this thing.

If you're in Ashland, WI, during the summer Antiques on Main is a great place to check for cool stuff. They have walls full of beautiful china.

Expression is Not an Exact Science

If you've ever contracted out expensive custom work to our shop, you've seen the "art can be unpredictable" clause on our contracts. I've never had to actually use that clause, but it's better to have it there. When it comes to dyeing our shop is a formula shop. That means we make very repeatable colorways and colors are somewhat predictable. But sometimes the city changes it's water, a company ships a new batch of dyes, there's a little more of a breeze, etc and things are off just a little. But being formula guys it isn't generally a problem.

Today has nothing to do with dyeing or formulas or perfection. It has to do with what happens when Libby can't follow her own pattern....

After the initial design is done and before we even get out the wheel, we always do a test burn. We take selections of the final pattern (especially any motifs we aren't sure about) and do full size burns on scrap wood. Sometimes a scaled down version of the front design is done with a variety of textures and shading to determine the final look of the piece. At left is a sample from two wheels currently in progress, Gretchen and The Frog Prince. Doing test burns is an important step from what we see in our head to what actually works on the wood. Often there are marks, big X's, arrows, sometimes sharpie highlights, etc to help me prepare the final piece.

So what happens when you get it perfect and then you go and goof it all up...?

Art happens.

In the beginning

Ok, technically this is several rungs up the ladder, but honestly, when's the last time anyone actually started a story in the beginning?


Custom wheels all go through a development stage which includes real-size mock-ups. This was taken as I added the final touches to our current custom "Frog Prince" wheel. Lesson #1: the required "napkin with math." You must have one of these. It is essential to good wheel design. Although bar napkins do tend to bear some of the best ideas, a fast food rag can be helpful in a pinch. I once had to go get late night fries at McDonald's just so I could finish a project. Sometimes in this business sacrifices must be made.