Spinolution Pollywog: An Honest Review
Shopping for a spinning wheel is HARD, especially when it is your first wheel. Wheels are generally a fairly pricy item and can come with a wide variety of features that one might need to consider. Futhermore, it’s not like the average person can pop over to their local spinning wheel store to test out the newest model. As an aside: if you live somewhere with a local corner spinning wheel store, I need to know where this magical place is in the comments below! After months of online research and dreaming of owning a wheel, I knew that the 4 most important features to me were: footprint, portability, ability to spin different types of yarn, and noise level.
For Christmas 2018, my amazing husband rallied my family to contribute to getting me my first spinning wheel! Time to put that research into action. I settled on the Spinolution Pollywog!
My Spinolution Pollywog in all her glory!
In the beginning … there were problems. But stick with me till the end, there is a happily ever after on the horizon!
Confession time! I almost returned it. Why you ask? Well, there were quite a few reasons actually. First off, I ordered an extra drive band to avoid some future shipping fees, and it just didn’t come at all. Secondly, I ordered the orifice riser with my Pollywog. It is a very petite wheel, standing just under 21 inches in height, and the orifice riser was supposed to make it stand 3 inches taller. Sounds great except I got a faulty orifice riser. The riser was admittedly a new item at the time, but still, that was disappointing. I felt my emails were not responded to in a timely manner and it wasn’t until the owner got involved after a second faulty orifice riser was sent to me that progress was made. At this point though, I was very frustrated and I felt like I must seem crazy emailing them with these complications. Then problem 3 showed up (and it was a 3 part problem). I had to make 3 repairs to the flyer almost immediately. Repair 1 was the wood at the bottom of the flyer head wasn’t shaped property and it was digging into the neck of the base and causing that wood to split. A little bit of sandpaper fixed that up. Repair 2 was the magnetic orifice bar came apart in my hands. Not only did the orifice hook come out but the inside part that supports the bar for the bobbin spins on fell out into my hand as well. Nothing a little industrial glue wouldn’t fix, but really, I don’t think I should have needed to do this. Repair 3 was that the flyer bounced as I was spinning … not just a little shimmy but a 1/2 inch bounce! At this point I felt like I had nothing to lose so my father and I took the entire flyer apart! So scary to contemplate but in truth, it’s a very simple mechanism. After playing around for a few, we determined a nylon washer was just the ticket for tightening everything up so the bounce was gone.
A slow motion of the treadling action on the Spinolution Pollywog spinning wheel. Orifice riser is being used to make the wheel taller.
Finally, I had a wheel that worked! Should I have gone through all that? No! They need to build up their customer service department and quality check their wheels better before shipping them out for sure. I honestly think the only thing that kept me from returning it was the fact that my family gave me this gift. Now that I’ve had it for over a year, I enjoy it and only have one remaining major complaint. The 4 oz bobbin does not hold 4 ounces of wool. I will say, I have seen one person spin 4 oz of silk, but that hardly seems fair to compare something with no loft. Typically what I do is I stop every so often, unwind the spun yarn and rewind it on tighter so it is as compact as possible on the bobbin. Even then, the standard wooden bobbin won’t hold 4 oz plied easily (or at all). I did go ahead and purchase one of the brand new SpinPerfect 3-D printed bobbins recently. These bobbins come from the maker of Spinolution, but are purchased as an after market item. I’m going to write up a full review soon, but you can clearly see they have a lot more space to store yarn than the standard wooden bobbins that come with the wheel. Did this completely fix my 4 oz problem? No, but it is closer for sure. I think I’ll have to upgrade my flyer or get a new wheel in the future in order to produce yarn faster.
Features
The tension is a very easy to use mechanism: turn it towards you it slows the bobbin from spinning as freely making it take the yarn onto the bobbin faster; turn the knob away from you, and the bobbin stops pulling in the yarn as hard. I love how simple that functions! The treadles are a double toe treadle, meaning you don’t have to put your whole foot on nor do you need to pivot at the ankle. It easily performs with both feet on the treadles, or even using it as a single treadle. I absolutely love the way it moves, it’s mesmerizing to watch! Check out my slow motion video above to see it! The Lazy Kate sits on the top, and while I store my bobbins up there, I don’t use it for plying cause I almost always ply from a center pull ball regardless of whether I am making a 2 ply or a chain ply. So I’m not really a good judge of Lazy Kate functionality regardless of where they sit. Another thing I’m glad I purchased is the orifice riser. While I absolutely think it’s fine to spin on the Pollywog without it, I really feel like that extra 3 inch rise makes me able to sit in any seat for spinning. A tip if you’re having trouble with how low it is, position the wheel a little further away from your body so the angle of the yarn entering the orifice isn’t so steep. Plus, a little added bonus of the orifice riser is it gives you a great place to place a seat belt around your Pollywog for outings. A parent has to protect all their babies after all! LOL!
The Happily Ever After
After spinning on it for a year now, I do love my wheel. Over all, it absolutely fits my top 4 criteria that I mentioned at the beginning as I imagined it would. I love that the wheel is 15 inches wide and 9 inches deep. It hardly occupies any floor space in my living room! It also weighs less than 10 lb, so this is super easy to grab and go for spin guild or demos or hanging out with friends. I can spin any type of yarn and I mean ANY! The hook orifice allows everything from super fine to the chunkiest bumpiest yarn you can dream of to slide through just fine. The wheel also ranges in spinning ratios from 1:2.5 to 1:14. I tend to the use the 1:4.5 and 1:10 ratios the most personally, and this allows me to comfortably spin and ply worsted weight down to fingering weight. I’ve even spun cotton on the fastest ratio. Lastly, this wheel is almost silent! It has never once made a noise that made us need to turn up the TV if I’m spinning next to my husband in the evening.
Would I purchase it again as a first time wheel? Yeah, I probably would. I couldn’t predict I’d become hooked on spinning and want to open a fiber arts store! So upgrading is just a natural progression of the fiber arts addiction I think. I do highly recommend getting an extra drive band. I haven’t needed mine yet, but I’ll be glad to have it in the event of a failure. I also very much recommend the orifice riser. That extra height is so helpful and far cheaper than the accelerator they offer. Make sure to ask your Spinolution rep to order those! Don’t have a Spinolution dealer? I highly recommend Erin James, owner of Crafty Housewife Yarns. She is very communicative and has great online info about the Spinolution wheels on YouTube.
I’d love to hear about your first wheel and how you went about choosing one! It’s certainly a hard task to narrow down the features. My best tip is to know that everyone will learn to work with the machine in front of them. While they all generally do the same job, every wheel I’ve ever experienced had its own finicky bits to make it spin just right. Think about the features you’re sure you need and start narrowing the list from there. My journey to loving my wheel might not have been the most smooth, but I know this wheel will be with me for years to come for demos and guild visits and my kids trying spinning and more. Leave me a comment below about you favorite wheel to date!