Turkish Drop Spindle

I am often blessed by Sheepy and her family's woodworking skills. I try to reciprocate with cheese from time to time, but I often get the better end of the friendship.

In December our family will be part of a live Nativity. I was asked to sit where the wool and spinning wheel is. Vet2Be will be tending the sheep using his own shepherd's crook.

I've been to this live Nativity the past two years. One family started it in memory of their mother and as a fund-raiser to donate to the hospital that took loving care of her in her last days.

It is a town set up with different shops and places to visit. There are always camels, sheep, goats, Roman soldiers riding horses, wandering people, and a wonderful spirit.

I have noticed that they have always had a spinning wheel at the wool shop. Of course, I never said anything, but spinning wheels weren't invented until the middle ages.

I asked Sheepy if she happened to have a Turkish drop spindle. I thought that would probably more authentic than a spinning wheel or a traditional drop spindle with a round whorl.

Here is one of the links we found on how to make a Turkish drop spindle.

And here is a photo of the one that Sheepy and her dad made for me. It turns out that she didn't have one, but she thought it would be a nice gift for me! It is!

The great thing about the Turkish drop spindle is that when you fill your spindle, you pull out the shaft, then pull out the cross pieces, and you end up with a center pull ball.



I'd love to try some Andean plying when I get a full spindle. Sheepy said that it takes some special skill to keep the yarn bracelet from turning into a tangled mass. My thought is to learn the technique with commercial yarn first, and then try it with home spun.

Always more projects and more to learn! What a wonderful life I get to live!

Teaching Spinning

We try to do fun things when we homeschool. Hands-on projects are favorites. This week I taught the children how to use a carder and drop spindle. Here are a few photos from the day. Thanks to Vet2Be for taking them!

 Charging the carder with wool.

The carder all full of wool. The wool is nothing special, just stuff I use for teaching. It wasn't sheared very well so it is great practice wool.

 Me showing the kids how to card :)

One of the hardest concepts for kids to understand is to not dig the teeth of the top carder into the teeth of the bottom carder! One of the kids had the wool pushed way down into the teeth because she didn't understand that the purpose of carding is just to get the fibers going in the same direction and to get the last bits of vegetable matter out.

Each time I teach something I learn how to explain it better for the next time. This was no exception!

Home-made Drop Spindles

I was intrigued by the idea of making drop spindles using old CDs for the whorl. I have seen instructions on the internet to make them and thought I would try my hand at a few since I will be teaching a spinning to some children in a few weeks.

There is big difference between something that is home-made and something that is hand-crafted. All my drop spindles are home-made. Not one of them is beautiful, and not one of them took me more than 15 minutes to make. They aren't beautiful, but they work well. I've spun enough on one of my home-made spindles to knit a small back-pack, so I know they work just fine.

I found the instructions for CD drop spindles at Lifestyle Studies helpful, but I didn't follow them exactly. They do a good job with instructions, so if you are interested, take a look at their link.

I was able to find some old CDs as well as some cup hooks at home. I had to purchase a dowel and a few rubber grommets at the local hardware store. I found the grommets by the electrical supplies. They were only 35 cents each.

I didn't use the blind well nuts as directed in the instructions on Lifestyle Studies, mostly because I'm a cheapskate. I teach for the fun of it and generally don't charge 'tuition' so if I can keep my cost down, then I feel better about my hobbies.

I glued 2 CDs together with some E6000 Crafter's glue and let them dry overnight. I brought my glued CDs to the store, stuck the grommet in the hole and found a dowel that would fit through the hole.

At home I cut the dowel into 12" sections and sharpened one end with a pocket knife. (Vet2Be helped sharpen a few, too.) Then we put the dowel shaft through the CDs with the rubber grommets in place. Since the fit was snug, but not tight, I decided to run a bead of E6000 Crafter's Glue around the bottom of the grommet where it meets the dowel. It made the whole contraption much more secure.

One of my Sheepy friends said I could probably use masking tape to enlarge the dowel to fit in the CD as well. So I also gave that a try, too. I still had two sections of dowel left as well as a few more CDs and cup hooks. I'm almost always willing to experiment, and this experiment saved me 35 cents!

One of the blogs I visited said that she didn't like the CD whorl because it wobbled. I was concerned about that since having a fairly well balanced spindle makes it much easier to learn to spin. It is hard enough to teach kids to spin with a drop spindle, if I give them a spindle that wobbles I would be setting them up for failure. I would much rather have students (children or adults) succeed. In order to get the shaft straight so it wouldn't wobble, I put the drop spindle together with glue around the shaft, then put it in a jar to get the shaft straight. I lined up the shaft with a corner (most of my house is plumb) and let the glue dry overnight.

This is one of the CD spindles with tape around the shaft sitting in a jar to make sure that the shaft stays plumb while the glue is drying.

When I tried the spindle the next day I found that it wasn't wobbly at all. I did end up with one drop spindle that was a little wobbly, but that is because I wasn't careful when I glued the two CDs together. One CD was shifted just a bit to the side.

The other drop spindle in the first photo is made with a round wooden base with a hole drilled in the center. Hubby drilled the hole for me. I found the wooden base at Wal*Mart a few years ago for about $1. I have also used wooden wheels that I found at craft stores for the whorl. The CD drop spindles are definately cheaper.

The only thing I would do differently on the CD spindles is use hardwood dowels. The hardware store only had pine dowels, so that is what I bought. My old wooden spindles all have hardwood dowels for the shaft. I like the feel of the hardwood better. It is also easier to drill a pilot hole for the cup hook in the hardwood dowels.

One thing I did notice about the CD whorls is that they are much slipperier around the edge. So when I 'lock up' the yarn around the bottom, it tends to slip around the CD. The wooden whorls don't have that problem. I haven't thought of a way to fix that problem yet. I know that will make it a bit trickier for students to 'lock up' the yarn.

A view of the bottoms of 3 drop spindles. Left to right: a wooden whorl made from a sculpture base found at Wal*Mart (yes, that is a rubber band holding the wooden whorl on the shaft), CD whorl with tape to enlarge the spindle, CD whorl with a rubber grommet.

I now have 11 drop spindles, 4 made from CDs and 7 made from wooden parts. That's enough to teach a bunch of people how to spin!