Category Archives: drop spinning

Before and after – full spindles, naked spindles

One of the things I like to do when I am spinning on spindles, is to select a bunch of them to explore. I have a strong desire to learn as much about support spindles as I can, and my spinning time is limited. At this stage of my spinning journey with these new (to me) tools, I am not overly fussy about the yarn, so I will happily combine support and suspended spindles into my explorations.

In the photo below, there are three cross-piece (suspended) spindles AKA Turkish spindles along the top; and in the next row a suspended spindle by Eric Stapleton; and support spindles by Texas Jeans, CreativeJayne (the next two); can’t remember the maker of the dark wood Phang; and the last one is by Carry Cherry. The last four spindles I purchased online, only viewing photos and hoping for the best. These did not disappoint. They are a variety of weights and shapes. I move from one spindle to the next as determined by my attention span, temperament, and interest in the task at hand.

The fibre I’m spinning is mostly wool with some silk/yak made into rolags on my blending board.

I will spin on one spindle for a day or so, and then switch to another one. And so on. Doing this allows me to compare the spindles, the amount of energy it takes to get the spindle into motion, the amount of time it holds a spin (or doesn’t); and how the weight feels and affects my hands. When my hands, mostly my right thumb, gets sore, I stop. I take a break, wash the dishes – warm water helps soothe the sore muscle. And then a few hours or days later depending on how sore my thumb is, I start again with a different spindle.

With each spindle I am learning new things; new strategies for winding a cop or turtle; new techniques for keeping the spindle in motion; and with the support spindles, I am also exploring the different styles and materials used in the spinning bowls. It really is a rabbit hole of things to explore; spindles, fibre preps, spinning bowls, and then of course, techniques.

In the photo below I show (all but cross-piece) spindles without the yarn on them, so you can see their shape. I wouldn’t say that each spindle was full – but they were mostly full enough for me. As you make and store the yarn onto your spindle, it adds weight to the spindle. The process of winding the newly spun yarn onto the spindle is called building your cop. The cop is the name of the stored yarn. Even that part of the process takes skill and decision making.

So with each spindle I’m learning, reflecting, and mostly enjoying the process of making yarn with a stick. Working with several at a time gives me a chance to do instant comparisons and over time, I’ve learned what my favourite shapes, weights, and lengths are.

More to come about that.

Lupine Forest – experiment #2

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Welcome to 2017. Here’s a blog post that’s been sitting in my drafts for a while waiting for some photos to attach to it. Finally, I finished it.

A while back I wrote about working with this colourway – Lupine Forest from Kinfolk Yarn and Fibre. I liked the result, but also felt that the purples, the Lupine buds, were lost in the yarn. So I decided to try spinning it differently so that I could try to get the purple buds to POP.

I spun it on a drop spindle because I made this spinning decision at a guild demonstration where I only brought my spindles. I’d never really tried to spin thick and thin on a spindle, but I am always up for a challenge and the chance to learn new things. I hate making mistakes, which may surprise you for the number of mistakes I make, but once I get over the ego-bruising of a mistake, I have always learned something valuable.

Below is the result. Notice that the purple pieces are thicker than the other colours.

And here is is next to ball of varigated greens that it was plied with.

I plied it on my wheel. I wanted to try different plying techniques that I have only learned and practiced on my wheel, so comfort was the key to confidence. First I tried differential tension with the plying that you can see along the bottom right of this skein. I didn’t think I wanted that. Then in a fit of enthusiasm, I made a couple of super coils. I didn’t think that would work with the knitting pattern and plan that I wanted to compare it to, so I continued with straight on plying.

And here’s the final yarn. The purple pops, and when knitted up into half-mitts it popped a bit. Not as much as I thought it would. So there’s a message to those who think their uneven yarn won’t look nice.

And here it is knit up into my Simple Lines pattern. The purple bits did exactly what I wanted them to do.

And here’s a close-up. I love the texture it brings to the mitts.

And I continued the experiment by doing the thick purple parts and this time plying it with variegated brown instead of with green. I haven’t knit it up yet, but it’s a good example of the many yarns you can make from one painted braid.

Happy Spinning!