Persistent Knitter

Since I’m apparently unable to take pictures of anything these days, I’ll blather on about some spinning stuff. (Sadly enough there are pics on my camera waiting to be moved to the PC.  I have no idea what they are of I took them so long ago)

I found  a link to a neat "drop" spindle, that can’t possibly drop!  The Spindolyn.

This is a really neat concept, and one that I think would be great for beginning spinners.  When I took a spinning class, I was given some commercially prepared fiber, a fairly heavy drop spindle, and some rudimentary instructions (the normal teacher was out sick unfortunately).   There are a LOT of things to learn when you first learn to spin. How to draft out the fiber. How to control the twist, letting it slowly take over the drafting zone as you draft more fiber.  How to attach the newly spun yarn to the drop spindle, how to spin the spindle, and draft the fiber.  You’re teaching your hands a whole new task, that it hasn’t done before.

My friend Rebecca, who teaches people to spin, favors the "park-and-draft" method. It boils down to: spin your spindle a whole bunch, adding twist, but not letting the twist move by pinching the yarn before the drafting zone. When you’ve got a whole bunch of twist built up, stop, tuck the spindle under your arm, or hold it between your knees, and work in drafting that twist into the un spun fiber.  Wind on the spun yarn.  This lets you do one thing at a time; rather than three at once.  Once you get comfortable with the park-and-draft method, you can move on to actually drafting while the spindle is spinning.

The Spindolyn is a variation of this theme, in that you can start the spindle spinning and then use both hands for drafting out the fiber.  The spindolyn lets you keep the spindle spinning though instead of stopping it and tucking it under your arm.  Being that I’m fond of tools & gadgets, esp pretty ones, I may someday have to pick up one of these.