Inbox reveal

 You saw this on Field and Fen

And here's the rest of the story.  As you see, signed and personalized by the maker; Akerworks  is a small company

It's my birthday present to me from moi.  A geranium spindle, modular, you pick the color and style of the whorl. I think the whorl, that's the roundish bit that's not the shaft, is 3D printed. And you choose the shaft length. And the parts are a perfect, snug fit.

This whorl can be slid up and down the shaft, depending on whether you like to spin with a high whorl, like here, which I do, or a low whorl, which some people do, and I don't.  My wooden Schacht spindles can be switched to turn whichever way you want, the hook at the top of the whorl, and there's a groove incised in the bottom to hold the yarn if you like the bottom whorl way instead.

So I quickly assembled the two pieces, and went for a test drive.  I had seen this in use on YouTube, and was impressed by the speed  the spinning teacher could get on the spindle without a lot of effort.  I find that my wooden ones need enough pressure that I get a bump on my finger where it keeps having to apply pressure on the turning motion. But I wondered if this is a user problem, and if the new one would be as laborious for me as the wooden ones.

But look. This spindle has that thing at the base of the shaft, see it?  to hold for the flicking movement.  And after my first try, I have to say this is the Lambo of spindles.  Compared to this, my Schachts, much as I love them, are more the Honda Civic, trustworthy, reliable, will never get up a turn of speed, at least for me.

There are a couple of other advantages, too, to this shape, but no need to go into every detail.  Just call me a happy customer of the folks at Akerworks.

I've been promising myself one of these for ages and ages, and finally thought, why not, you're worth it. So I did.