Basic Spinning

A Brief History of the Spindle

Twig Bar

Spinning has a way of bringing you down to the basics, it calms and restores, while building something of use. I use a drop spindle in the same manner as many of our ancestors. I recommend it to everyone, men and women, as well as children can learn this happy pass-time.

~Lady Arry'shanna

In the very beginning, spinning was done without tools. The thread was drawn out of a bundle of fibers and twisted between the palm of the hand and thigh of the leg. The length of the spun or twisted fibers was wound onto a short, straight stick. The process was then repeated. The hand spindle developed from the short straight stick. Over time the stick was notched to hold the thread and a weight was added to give momentum to the stick as it whirled. The weight, known as a "whorl" was made of clay, a round piece of wood, or a flat rock. Thus was born the hand or drop spindle.

How to Use a Drop Spindle

Start with a spindle. I'll assume a low-whorl drop spindle, since that seems to be the "classic" spindle shape, and most common for beginners. It normally has either a hook on top or a notch near the top.

You also need fiber. I'd recommend, as everyone else does, that you use something better rather than something cheap. I'll also add, get something that is not "sleek and smooth", and to stay away from most exotics and stick with wool. Do not get "superwash" wool to start with, as it tends to be slippery and may make it difficult to spin on a drop spindle unless you have some experience. Your second fiber purchase can be superwash. I'll also recommend to get something that was "carded" instead of "combed", if you have the choice.

Expectations: your first yarn will look terrible. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THAT. Keep it, giggle at it, and learn. Everybody is their own worst critic. I've been spinning for about 4 years and I still think my yarn is uneven, but everyone else says it's amazingly consistent, so one of us is right, and I have faith that I'm the one wrong

To Start

Create a "leader" on the spindle: Find a 4 to 5 foot length of good old acrylic worsted weight (4-ply) yarn (about 4 times the length of the spindle shaft). Tie the ends together. pull the yarn until the loop is as long as it will get (about 2-3 feet). Attach this loop to the spindle by bringing one end around the back of the spindle shaft and placing the other end through the loop. Bring this flattened loop down the spindle, over the edge of the whorl, and loop it around the bottom of the shaft protruding under the whorl, then bring it up over the whorl and to the top of the shaft where the hook or notch is. (there are other ways of doing this, but I think this is the easiest for a new person to understand). Create a "half hitch" in the yarn on the hook / notch which attaches the yarn to the top of the shaft, and now you can hang the spindle in mid-air by merely putting the loop around your finger. A half-hitch is sort of like a loose overhand knot.

Practice

Practice Spinning: no fiber yet. Spin the spindle CLOCKWISE in mid air. Feel the loop tighten around your finger. Watch the leader twist tighter and tighter. You will always spin the spindle CLOCKWISE when spinning from the raw fiber. To ply your "singles", you spin the singles COUNTER-CLOCKWISE. Don't worry about that now,you probably won't get to the plying stage for a while. Now, put the spindle down.

Look at the fiber. From one end, grab ONE STRAND of wool (they're really fine)and pull it from the rest. Look at it in the light. It should be about 2-3 inches long. This is what you'll be spinning, remember that all strands are about this same length. Now grab a piece of wool about half the thickness of a pencil from the end of the wool with one hand, and not holding the wool with the other hand. Notice how the wool seems to stick together. Take the piece (about 6 in.) and with both hands about an inch or less apart in the middle of this piece, try to elongate the piece. Notice how you cannot. That's because you're holding both ends of all the wool in that chunk! Put your hands on each end of the piece. Pull apart slowly. Notice how the wool slowly "stretches". This stretch is called the "draw". It stretches because you are holding only one END of each of the fibers that are touching each of your hands, and the other ends are sliding apart. Remember your high school physics: if you hold both ends of an item, that item will not stretch beyond it's length. but if you hold only one end of an item, it can move.

Now draft the fiber a little bit, and twist it by hand a few twists. Notice that the twisting is catching the fiber, and it becomes harder to draft the fibers which are caught in the twist. Basically, what's going on here is that the twist is acting like an anchor to one end of each strand. So to draft, you have to ensure that your hand is not too close to the twisted section, or else the twist will be holding one end, and your hand will be holding the other end, and you won't be able to draft the wool.

Spinning is a method of controlling how much fiber goes into the twist.

It's now time to start spinning the fiber. Peel off a piece of the fiber so you get a very long "chunk" of fiber, about as wide and thick as two fingers, and about a foot long. Draw out a piece about an inch long and as wide as you want the finished yarn to be and slip it through the loop on the end of the leader. Give the spindle a good clockwise spin and allow it to swing freely. you now have the chunk of fiber in one hand, and hold the other hand on the new strand to keep the twist from entering the chunk too quickly. Slowly allow the twist to grab some fiber, and now pull the fiber away from where the twist is creating the yarn.

Here's where you have to stop to pick up the spindle because by now you've probably "broken" the strand and the spindle is rolling on the floor. To restart a "broken" strand, untwist some fiber at the very end of the strand where it just broke, and overlap some of the fiber in your other hand against this strand, about 1-2 inches of overlap. When you allow the twist to once again catch this fiber, it will magically attach itself to the new fiber supply.

Usually what happens is that a new spinner can't get the draw right, and you get lots of thick areas with lots of thin areas in between. The thick areas end up with apparently no twist, but the thin areas get so twisted up, they get to feeling hard, and eventually they snap. If you start to see a thin area, stop the spindle, and overlap some new wool over the thin area, and restart spinning to make the thin area fatter with the new wool. Sometimes it's just easier to break off the thin area, toss it, and restart from a thicker area by attaching the new fiber to that.

You're spinning! when the strand gets too long, stop, undo the half hitch, and wind it onto the spindle. Redo the half hitch and keep spinning.

This was taken from a great source called "Spindlitis", I just found it and I wanted to share this great piece of information with everyone that finds this page.

Check it out! Spinning with a spindle From: Karyn Pichnarczyk

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