A few months ago I got several new-to-me
drop spindles. These are different than the few spindles I already had. These are called bottom whorl spindles and none of them had the little hooks at the top which I was accustomed to using when spinning.
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| Spindles with hooks at the top |
Instead they use a method of catching the yarn called a half hitch, where you make a little slip knot thingy (pictured below).
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| Half hitched |
The spindles are so simple and earthy looking but I could never seem to get the hang of it (no pun intended) when it came to actually spinning. Well, this week I did it!
After I got back from my trip down south to see my sister, I came home home inspired to spin. While there, we had taken some walks on the beach looking for sea shells, one of which I would use as a diz when combing wool.
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| Perfect seashell for a DIZ |
Once I got home with all these sea shells, I had to try them out, finding one which really suited me, although it was not polished and shiny. It was dull and had lots of wiggly lines in the surface from its life in the sea. But the key ingredient was a little hole right in the center of the shell. This is where you pull the wool through, right off your wool combs.
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| Sea shell collection |
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| The perfect diz |
Now that I've got all this great wool, in roving form, I HAD to spin it. So I grabbed one of the spindles from my new collection and gave it a whirl. (once again, no pun intended)
I had seen on a youtube video that when using the bottom whorl method of spinning, you had to catch the yarn
below the whorl,
then bring it up above the whorl to the top and use the half hitch. This seems like such a little thing, but I'm telling you, it was a EUREKA moment for me!!
