The Athena Capricorn Spinning Wheel
This travel spinning wheel is the Athena Capricorn. It's made of solid walnut and maple, but weighs just ten pounds.
The Interweave Yarn Fest in Loveland, Colorado was a lot more crowded than I expected for a Thursday morning. Perhaps after several years of event cancellations, people really needed to get out and fondle fibers. Still, it was totally worth taking a day off from work, because everyone was super nice and it was great to be around people who are also into yarny things. And, because this adorable travel spinning wheel followed me home.
This lovely piece of kit is the Athena Capricorn, which is handmade by a husband-and-wife company in their Wyoming workshop. Even though this spinning wheel is made of solid maple and walnut, it weighs just ten pounds. It can be assembled or disassembled in literally one minute, even by me, and breaks down small enough to fit in a carry-on or tote bag. But most importantly, it is very smooth to spin on.
It's easy to see why this spinning wheel is associated with Athena, the Greek warrior goddess who is also the goddess of spinning and weaving. She's symbolized by the owl, which is clearly present on this wheel. Julie, one of the company's owners, explained to me how the owl shape happened. While her husband Mark was making the initial prototypes in their workshop, she'd insisted that any travel wheel needs to have handles so it can be easily picked up and moved. He disagreed and declined to add any handles. One day Julie made his favorite lunch, Sloppy Joes, and locked the kitchen door, telling him he couldn't come in for lunch until the wheel design had handles. He quickly drilled some large finger-holes in the top of the body, and came in for lunch! They decided that the finger holes made it look a little like an owl, so Mark shaped the body and added wings, and the rest is history.
The fact that the company is small means that it can be hard to lay your hands on one of these wheels. I first saw them at the Salida Fiber Festival back in the Before Times of 2019, and they were completely sold out by the time I got to the Athena tent. You can order online, and they build to order in a couple of months, but I wanted to try out the wheel before buying, so I waited.
Once I got to sit down at the wheel, I wasn't disappointed. From a technical perspective, this spinning wheel is very well designed. The orifice is low, but angled upward so that even someone (like me) with long legs can sit in pretty much any comfortable chair to spin. The orifice also has a spiral design like a ball winder, so no orifice hook is needed. The flyer is driven by direct contact with the flywheel, via the bit that looks like a thread spool with an O-ring, which adjusts up or down on the flywheel to set the spinning ratio. There’s no drive band, and the Scotch tension is easy to set up and adjust with a wooden peg. Two different footman holes on the back of the flywheel mean that it's quick to adjust direction for spinning or plying. Included with the wheel is a choice of flyer, with either traditional hooks or with sliders, and a set of three bobbins in various sizes. Akerworks also makes flatpack bobbins for this wheel in a rainbow of colors and two sizes.
When I got home from Yarn Fest I set up the wheel right away (well, after some lunch), and spun up a small fiber sample to adjust the settings and get used to the vibe. Later I moved on to the gorgeous fiber in this photo, Greenwood Fiberworks superwash merino + firestar in the "Arizona" colorway, also acquired at Yarn Fest.
Since then, I’ve had many lovely adventures with my little owl friend, and I’m enjoying watching her wood darken over time. The only issue I’ve had so far is that the pin that holds the left footman onto the “wing” keeps popping out as I spin. I can tap it back in gently with my toe, but if I’m spinning fast it can be annoying. Still, the Capricorn is a lot of fun and I’ve spun some great yarn on her. Who knows where we will go next?