(Image: photo of a bag of white fluffy kapok pod bedding for small pets. The product description on the bag includes "The fibres are also very short and break easily so they don't twist into long 'strings' like some bedding can." Next to the bag, I show some of the fibre spun into yarn on a tahkli spindle.)
Challenge accepted.
It is by far the weakest yarn I've ever spun, but it is spinnable. After a slightly frustrating start, I got several metres with no breaks. However, each fibre is so short and shiny smooth and fragile that the yarn breaks at a thought and drifts apart at a dream - I genuinely don't know if it will be plyable or if the "fluffing up" of a plied yarn will destroy it. It might be a tiny bit stronger if I could draft it finer, so I could put in more twists per inch, but I haven't yet been able to maintain that. No idea what, if anything, I will do with the yarn - it's the first time I've spun something too weak for a warp and I'm barely even sure it would work as weft, let alone for something like knitting or crochet which puts strain on specific areas of yarn.
Still, it's very fun to work with! It drafts easily with no prep and it joins easily after a break (though you can't graft it or knot it, you just have to join a new bit of the cloud). I mostly have this tahkli because I want to spin cotton from the seed, which I've only done a tiny bit so far; if I can master this fibre then cotton should be easy when I get hold of more of that. My spun cotton was uneven and about the same diameter as the kapok yarn so far, but already much stronger.
A supported spindle like this one is 100% the right choice for this fibre as I believe it definitely wouldn't hold the weight of my suspended spindles. Therefore I am justified in my spindle collection. I should try it with the 8g spindle on its way to me from @ofchaosgoddess...
