#drop spindle

About probably 20 years ago at this point, I carved this little drop spindle by hand from bone and osage orange, because I wanted to see if I could learn to spin and I was but a poor college student, and I figured that the ancient peoples had to invent the technology in the first place, so I could probably figure it out. And I'm me, so I made it pretty. I thought the cats circling around the mouse on the top of the stick was a cute motif. It works. The hat is made from the first wool I spun. It's not evenly spun, but it is a little hat with a little tassel.

This is my biggest spin yet! She’s 8 oz of Merino wool turned into a 348 yard, 11 WPI masterpiece! She has a few pig tails in her skein but I’m working with a drop spindle and nothing else at the moment so I’m incredibly proud of this yarn.

Been spinning and kniting 🧶

I started on christmas and finished just after easter.

The spindle had a nice gradient at the moment so I dressed it up all fancy

Whiteface woodland, dyed by @littlebirdinagarden, being spun and plied on a 19g drop spindle most likely of Kerry Spindles on Etsy. I tear the top into 10g strips because the spindle is comfy with about 20g for the plied yarn (I have pushed it to 30g in the past and it was not fun). It's a very easy fibre to spin IMO - a bit coarse, medium to long staple, practically drafts itself.

The 2ply is coming out at about 600m/100g and 30wpi for the sample I measured just now. I've been working on it since September at a gentle pace and am finishing up the seventh 20g skein (and have spun the first single for the next skein already, as spinning is more portable than plying for me). Each skein takes maybe 10hrs total - 4hrs spinning each single, something like 1.5hrs for plying, and a bit of extra time for winding and general faff.