Good Gravy! After finishing my latest spin, my first on the turkish spindle, I looked back to see when I’d begun and saw that I’ve been nursing this spin along for nearly 6 months! I am powerfully happy to have it off my spindle! And yes – I learned a valuable lesson I can share with you regarding a turkish spindle.
The fiber was merino from Wonderland Dyeworks in the Mountain Meadow colorway, gifted to me by my Dear Daughter in Law Cindee, two years ago on my birthday. Although it was beautiful stuff of the highest quality, it managed to get pretty compressed from it’s travels with me to Greece and back again. Compressed fiber can be rescued by thorough pre-drafting and fluffing, but all this takes time and patience, and a level of fussing way above my usual.
I spun it fractally to create those pretty gradient stripes. I filled, emptied and refilled the medium sized Threads Thru Time turkish four times to get the entire four ounces. And those cops were darn good sized too!
My fancy wrapping method that I showed you in my Fancy Cop Winding post served me well in packing lots of singles on my spindle, but plying from those tightly wound little turtle shells was miserable, let me tell you. They didn’t feed well at all. I tried transferring the little shells to chopsticks in my homemade lazy kate, and finally ended up putting each in it’s own bowl, and plying from the outside of the balls- letting them bang around as I fought all the little coils and tangles. You can feel my pain, right? :sigh:
In the future, I’ll reserve the turkish spindle for those occasions when I’m intending to spin singles rather than plied yarn. And I’ll be much more careful not to allow my fiber to become compressed.
But, after all that: 650 yards of fluffy light fingering. Love!!!
All’s well that ends well.
Wow that is simply gorgeous yarn. Congrats on all your hard work. I don’t spin but I sure do knit and crochet. I admire your efforts and results.
Thankyou so much, Laura. Any ideas on what I should make with it?
How beautiful! Have you decided what you’ll create with your yarn?
I haven’t! What do you think? It’ll have those gradual soft edged stripes….for now I’m just petting and admiring it. 🙂
Glad to see you persevered! The result is beautiful!
Thankyou Amy!
So beautiful! And inspiring (I’m very new to spinning) 🙂
How cool Andrea! Are you spindle spinning? Love my spindles!
Yes, I have a top whorl and a Turkish spindle, but I would really love to try a supported spindle 🙂
Oh! Me toooo! 🙂
Wow, what beautiful yarn, so worth the effort, as are the lessons about spinning that you’re sharing with me. I always come back to your posts to get inspiration to use my spindles again. Thanks!
PS: I think it would make a lovely cowl. Perfect for unpredictable spring weather. 🙂
One more quick post, and I apologize if you’ve answered this question elsewhere. But how do you measure the yarn you’ve made? Does your Kniddyknoddy do it? I have a fancy measuring machine-like thing, but I know there must be easier ways.
Hi Jan,
I always measure mine by counting the number of wraps on the niddy noddy when I skein it up for finishing. On my niddy noddy, one wrap = 1 and one half yards, so I just multiply the number of wraps by 1.5
Thanks so much for your kind words, Jan. You sure keep me inspired to keep sharing. 🙂 Oh and now I got a wheel! Wheeee! Can’t wait to share about that. 🙂
Oh, that’s such exciting news! I can’t wait to hear more about your wheel!
How did I miss this beautiful yarn? I really like the gentle striping, and it looks wonderful in the mitts. Did you make a plying ball? I would go even more nuts plying straight from turtles instead of to a plying ball. I did a chain-ply once straight from the turtle, and it was NOT fun.
No, I tried plying directly from the little turtle shells. Big mistake. Next time – a plying ball!
Fabulous colours!
I’ve just knocked up a DIY spindle. Got the bug again after stumbling into your blog. I learned on a spindle, but haven’t used one for 30 years – I normally use a wheel. Spent a lovely afternoon spindling some leftover top.
BTW, if you are ever stuck trying to ply turtles or from the outside of balls, place each ball under an inverted terracotta plant pot. Thread each single through the respective drainhole – voila, no tangles.
Minerva! That’s genius!!! Thanks for sharing. 🙂 I will definately do that next time. I’d given up on plying from turtles, but now I’ll be able to do it again. Love spinning that way, so…..FUN! You know, as much as I love my wheel, working on a spindle is a singular pleasure.
Different strokes, eh, Mom?
Absolutely. 🙂 I guess you can love both!