i suffer from crafting hubris and going "i can make that" about everything so i thought i'd get an expert opinion first for once :D

also is there anything to look out for in regards to making the spindle?

hope you have a nice day!! ☀️

That's me ! Although I haven't in a while due to hand issues, but I digress. Also there are a few people posting about making their own spindles now which is very nice :)

I don't think it's a terrible idea, but I do see room for issues if you are totally new to spinning--it's entirely possible to make spindles so bad that they don't spin, and if it's not working you won't know whether it's the spindle, your technique, or both.

That said, if after a couple spindles you still can't get it to work at all, you might try buying that kind of spindle made by a professional and practice til it works. Then you'd be good to go.

Btw, if you have access to clay (either oven bake clay, air dry clay, or real clay and a kiln of some kind), you can make your own whorls as well ! Otherwise to make wooden whorls you'll really want power tools of some kind, in my experience.

If all you have is:

a knife to whittle with then you can make spindle sticks and supported spindles. you will want thin branches/thick sticks or some thin wooden batons such as found at the hardware store.

a knife and some clay then you can make drop spindles as well as spindle sticks and supported spindles. same kind of wood used as above.

powertools (such as a lathe, or possibly different kinds of saws although I have never done that myself so idk what kinds work !) then you can make drop spindles, spindle sticks, and supported spindles. BUT you will probably not want sticks/branches; batons or blocks of wood etc will be much easier to work with.

(A note on whorls: they exist to create momentum and also stability. They can range from circular beads to flat discs to, in the case of Turkish spindles, two interlocking arms.

All drop spindles have whorls, either removable or not, as it is necessary for them to spin correctly without already having a lot of yarn on them.

Supported spindles often have whorls but also sometimes have thicker sections of wood to act as a non-removable whorl. Sometimes they don't have a whorl of any kind, in which case they will usually be a little slow to use in the beginning until yarn is built up on them.

Spindle sticks never have non-removable whorls, but can be used both with and without removable whorls, depending on how you are spinning with them.)

I also recommend having a few different grits of sandpaper as well as oil/wood wax to make it pleasant to spin and easier on your fingers. Unfinished spindles can really tear up your fingertips, especially before you develop spinning callouses.

If you're working with sticks/branches I recommend a hand saw as well--this will make your life a lot easier but I have made spindles without it, it's not too terrible so long as your stick/branch is already roughly the correct length.

I wrote a piece about picking sticks/branches for spindles that may be helpful btw. It also goes into how to make a supported spindle in the style that I, specifically, preferred at the time.

I'm not putting info for learning to spin on this ask though because that will strongly depend on what kind of spindle you end up making. Drop spindles have by far the most beginner tutorials on youtube as they are the more common type of spindle these days. Supported has a small handful, but I wasn't able to find any at all for spindle sticks (which isn't to say they don't exist). You may be able to work off of non-beginner tutorials, though !

After seeing @orchardknit 's beautiful handmade supported spindles I decided I had to make my own! One thing led to another, and before long I realized maybe I could knit a wedding ring shawl with the alpaca fiber I had sitting around at home. Alas, this spindle is not a handwhittled creation because I only was able to go home for a brief period for Easter so modifying my cheap little homemade turkish spindle was faster, but once the semester ends I'm definitely trying my hand at the whittling!

This spindle didn't spin for very long at the beginning but it's getting better with more weight and better flicking technique! The spindle fills up so slowly with yarn this fine *pauses to measure wpi, loses count repeatedly* I think it's around 80 wpi though? Maybe more, my eyes were struggling.

*realizes I could have just marked out an inch long segment of the spindle shaft (bamboo kitchen skewer) and counted the wraps as I put them on to fill the inch segment*

I'm really enjoying the portability of spindling, I was able to pull out my little spindle and espresso cup spindle bowl while I was waiting around at my mock audition yesterday in studio class and I also cannot wait to spend some time in the sunshine spinning because we're having lovely weather this week!

I intend to make the Queen Susan Shawl, which is a lovely free pattern on ravelry with a great story behind it's creation, so 8 miles of singles, lovingly spun, here I come!

Finally saw my stuff in the folk art exhibit ! It opened a while ago, I've just been very busy. Still can't believe I got paid for this lol. And that they displayed the milkweed seeds I gave them !

Some other stuff I really loved ! Was fun, went with my partner and will go again next week with my mom, so I'll get to look at the exhibits again. Mine is like. Front and center, was not expecting that at all.

I will be the first to admit I'm not very practiced at measuring WPI. However....this 2 ply cotton seems to be 30 wraps per cm, or 76 wraps per inch. Yay ! That's not bad. I forgot I was trying to do 3 ply tho, so I still don't know how difficult 3ply cotton at 60 wpi is.

Id been wondering how it would spin without the extra length at the bottom, so....I bisected it. Seems to work OK, I honestly can't remember how it was before I shortened it; was a while ago that I spun that thread. I think I may have removed a little bit too much. But it does still work and it's still very fast.

I decided to drill through the existing holes so that the leftover end could be tied to something, maybe ? Could make a very good talisman, given that it was once part of a spindle.

I wish I could show my original sample but I think it's under my bed covered in dust, so I need to find and wash it before I can do a comparison. But this 2 ply is SO SOFT and lovely. I need more of it forever. I also really need cotton cards, because I suck at making punis on my wool cards, and now I'm very invested in cotton. I don't have a 'for fun' budget right now though, so, like most things, that will have to be on the backburner and for now I will muddle through with what I have and consider it all to be practice.

[Image descriptions:

Image 1: a stick sitting next to a whittling knife. They are approximately the same length.

Image 2: the stick has been whittled to a spindle shape. It is now maybe 3/4 the length of the knife. There are some wood shavings on the ground next to them.

Image 3: same as the second image but the spindle has been turned to display a side that is mottled gray from Spalding.

Image 4: same as before, but the spindle has been turned to the last side, showing knots in the spindle.

End image descriptions]

Carved this spindle after work today. Found the stick on the street last month, no idea what kind it is. It is partially rotted and has a lot of spalting. Looks nice but it was hard to carve.

Carved this birch spindle a couple weeks ago and woodburned a tree design. Been spinning up some more moss yarn on it, mostly at work. This rolag is a mix of merino and mohair locks. About to chain ply it when I finish.

Whittled a small birch spindle today. Was definitely a challenge, and my sandpaper sponges were missing (except for the roughest one) as well as my woodburning equipment. I'm fairly sure one of my roommates moved it... Anyway, it is unfinished bc all I had was my knife and the roughest sandpaper. I did oil it so I could use it though.

I know cotton is supposed to be spun on heavy fast spindles that can hold a lot of momentum, and this certainly isn't that. But I also know that I have an easier time spinning thread on really small spindles. So I'm testing this one out.

So far it's working well... the prep isn't good though. I tried re-preparing the previous rolag and its much worse, more lumpy, etc. Maybe my cards are damaging the fibers ? Idk. I will still spin it though, it's good practice and should be usable.

Lovely little spindle. I'm thinking of making it shorter actually...I could cut off most of the lower straight part and it should still be good.

As it stands, the spindle is about 5 inches (13 cm) tall.

This thread cop builds up very slowly as you can imagine, but the yardage progresses as fast as any other yarn...so if i spun this on a big spindle that holds 10 times more yarn, when it came time to wind it off it would be pretty miserable. I'm finding if I have to wind by hand id rather it be in small doses. Helps with a sense of progress as well.

I am curious if I can fit the rest of this rolag on here. We'll see.

Warm enough to carve a spindle today. No clue what the wood is, i must have picked it up a while ago, and found it in a bag in my room. It's got worm marks and some nice spalting.

And here it is with more of a cop on it (bottom)