Spindle Spun

I've been emailing with Tammy over at 365 Days on a Farm in Eldridge,IA, and we've decided to do a drop spindle class in her store next Saturday, June 25th.  She's had several people interested in learning to use a drop spindle and we talked about that quite a bit when I was there several weeks ago.  I'm not positive what the final participant fee will be but if you're anywhere near the Quad Cities area (or want to drive over from further afield), we'd love to have you join us.

The class will focus on beginning on a drop spindle but I'm sure we'll have some folks that will be ready to take their spindling on to greater heights.  If you're interested in the class, give Tammy a call at 563-285-9985.

Speaking of spindling, meet my newest spindle:

In case you don't recognize it, it's a vintage-looking door knob that I found at Hobby Lobby.  You have to make sure the hole goes all the way through the ceramic handle then take the hardware out.  You also want to try to make sure it's as balanced as possible.  I've got another one I did that's okay but not really great. Just a little unbalanced but it makes a difference.  Put it on a dowel that fits snugly, shape the top and bottom of the shaft and, woohoo, you have a spindle.

You can't see the top but I've just done a simple notch near the top so I can attach the yarn with a half-hitch.  For the bottom, I just sort of smoothed it out so it would spin nicely.  Then I sanded the shaft a bit, dipped it in some tung oil (and wiped off the excess).  It's the most amazing supported spindle I've ever seen for spinning.  In my little bowl, it spun last night for more than 90 seconds.  Perfect.  I've got some cotton on it right now and the spindle exceeds my ability to do the long draw but it's certainly helping me since I'm not having to draft AND fight to keep the spindle spinning.  It's my new favorite spindle.  Plus it's pretty!

The new spindle is posing with some bamboo yarn/thread that I spun on my Symphony last night.  I've never enjoyed my bamboo fiber spinning experiences but last night I got an inspiration to try it on the Symphony and it was love at first site, fiber to wheel, wheel to fiber.  My fiber wasn't well prepared (by me) so there was some diameter issues but I think I know how to solve that.  Now I want to do enough to make a little bobbin lace project.  I think this will work really well with bobbin lace.  This picture isn't very good but it shows a little more how fine it spun up.