Twinkle, Twinkle on my Spindle

Hay fever, check; but that’s apparently not enough to make me not want to play with my spindles☺️. While I had absolutely no desire to learn to spin until recently, I now have been spinning at every opportunity. I find it totally relaxing, and more mindless, completely different from knitting which can be mindless or not.

So, on that note, I’ve been spinning every other day, even when my symptoms are at their peak, and I now have my first ever, drop spindle spun fibre; all 100g (well, almost) of it.

In progress

The fibre is a merino-bamboo blend from World of Wool in the UK. I spun approximately 50g on each spindle and intend to ply them as they’ve been resting for a while now. I have no idea what weight they’ll turn out to be, but time will tell.

Finished Singles

Here they are in all their yarny gorgeousness (can you tell I’m pretty chuffed?). There are still areas of thick and thin, but it’s a lot more consistent than my practice fibre. I will be winding each cop (the bundle of spun yarn on the shaft of a spindle) into balls before plying because I read an article on Interweave Press that the end yarn benefits from this extra step, because winding off singles helps the twist to settle more evenly, and they are easier to ply. It also gives one the opportunity to remove any bits that don’t pass muster before they end up in the final yarn.

By the way, my Turkish spindle arrived and thank God, HM Royal Mail didn’t deem it worthy of their trouble, 😌

☮️