How to Make a Drop Spindle

December 13th, 2011

Spinning is awesome, and I bet you have everything in your house you need to make a spindle, and if you have a dog, or some other sheddy type of pet you might have everything you need to spin! (But wool is probably easier to start with.) This spindle I’m about to show you is super low tech, and slightly shoddy, but it does the job. The other CD tutorials I’ve seen want you to get a rubber grommet to snap the CD into, but I had a hard time finding one the right size, so I made this up instead. Heck, if you want to go really old skool though just go out in the front yard and pick up a rock. Done. The first drop spindles were very likely rocks with a leader yarn tied around them. Now I want to try spinning with a rock.

What do you need?

  • A wooden dowel, about 12″, (but a pencil will do fine in a pinch)
  • An old CD, (or some cardboard cut to look like a CD)
  • Some masking tape or two rubber bands
  • Some kind of hook – if you have a picture hanging kit look in there, otherwise you can get creative with a paper clip or sewing pin. Or you can ditch the hook altogether and just put a notch into the end of your dowel to hold the yarn, or tie your yarn in a half hitch around the end of the spindle. So many choices!

Wrap masking tape around your dowel or pencil until it just fits through the CD or cardboard. For a top-whorl spindle put the tape about 1/3 of the way from the top, and for a bottom-whorl put it about 1/3 of the way from the bottom. The ‘whorl’ is the thing that whirls around, in this case the CD. :-) I like a bottom whorl spindle because it is more stable, but a top whorl spindle is easier to hook the yarn on the hook because of the way the yarn comes up and over the edge of the CD and then through the hook.

Use small pieces of masking tape to secure the CD. You could also use hot glue.

To do the same thing with rubber bands, wrap one rubber band several times around your dowel to make a lump, stick the CD on, and then make another rubber band lump above it to hold it in place. This is what we did in our class. These rubber bands are too small though, you should use something thicker. Next time we will too. Or we will skip the CDs altogether and use wooden toy wheels.

Screw the cup hook into the end of your dowel or pencil eraser. You probably want to drill a pilot hole, but you can get away without if you are lazy like me and don’t mind a bit of cracking. If you are aiming for a heirloom spindle you probably aren’t going to use a CD, or follow this tutorial at all.

If you don’t have a hook, I would hammer in a pin, then pull it out, bend it into a curve with some pliers, and super glue it back in.

Then tie a stout piece of yarn around the middle of your dowel and start spinning! It is so much fun!

Actually, I think the CD doesn’t quite have enough mass to give you a nice spinning inertia, to make it better I’m going to try taping some pennies on the underside of the CD right at the outside edge. I bet that would give it a nicer feel.

Here are some getting started links from the Joy of Hand Spinning, there are videos over on the far right side of the pages.
Spinning with a Drop Spindle
Basic Hand Spinning Techiques

So much fun! I have no idea what to do with the yarn I’m making though, I’d like to make something special, but I’m not sure what. Any ideas?

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Stellated Dodecahedron

December 12th, 2011


What does stellated mean? It means pull on the center of every face on your polyhedron turning it into a pyramid. Yay! We learned something! This was such a neat brainless pattern (free over here) to work on in meetings. Which is to say I didn’t follow the pattern very well, used yarn that was much thicker than suggested and generally randomly tromped around my dodecahedron, and it still came out quite fun. At least Penelope thought so. And it gave me something to do rather than stab my eyes out at another wasted hour of my life. I need another crochet or knitting project to take to school meetings now. I feel less guilty crocheting than sewing for some reason, because I am not the only one doing it and it is culturally accepted as a brainless hand filling activity? Also there are fewer things to forget and no pieces to drop. I was spinning at our last general meeting, that works too, although there was more staring at the crazy lady. Stellated, your word of the day.

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Not Dead Yet

December 12th, 2011

I’ve survived my textiles class, it’s over! Except for all the material re-sorting, budget submitting, curriculum re-planning, volunteer soliciting, and then class will be starting again for the spring session… hrm. But next time I will have a clue! Clues are very very useful things. And now for some quick project catch up blurbs before I slam into the next year, ready or not.

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Texture Balls

November 11th, 2011


So… the picture could be better. This is a pre-no-brain-because-I-am-designing-curriculum project, harking back to my texture book tutorial but in 3D! Ooooh! (I am tired.) I used red, orange, yellow, brown and green, and I tried to arrange it (without actually buying any fabric) so that there were two textures for each color and at least two colors for each texture, if that makes any sense. So there was brown suede and brown corduroy, as well as green and red corduroy. It is fascinating! (pretend I’m one) There is this one silky texture in two different colors! And this one color, comes in two other different textures! And it goes around in circles! The patterns! Mind boggling! Clearly I need to go to bed.

In other news, I survived my spinning class yesterday. It went pretty well, there were a couple of kinders and first graders who needed more hands on help than I could give them, but really everyone managed it, in the end I think there was just one kinder who refused outright to spin, and one first grader who in the end had to hold the end of his wool up while I gave his drop spindle a few mighty spins and we twisted up the whole (3′) length at once. Sometimes you just need to move on to the next project. Out of 23 though, that’s not too bad, I think that means I made my 90% success goal. (We used this method if you’re curious.) It also means that there were several kinders who with a few minutes of personal attention actually did manage to successfully use a drop spindle with pre-drafted combed top. I learned it’s not actually called roving, unless it has some twist. But I need to be further educated there. So many new words! Diz, hackle, noil, long draw, short draw, rolag, woolen vs worsted, drafting, combed top, roving, sliver (rhymes with diver!?) so many words! If you are curious there is a lot of great information about spinning at the Joy of Handspinning. But like the snap of fingers, now I am on to weaving, because that is what I am teaching *next* week. I am learning SO much teaching this class! And weaving, it is so cool! Go read/watch this introduction to backstrap weaving! Now I want to make a backstrap loom, but my living room is currently full of a bajillion different table looms from school that I have to figure out and warp, so I don’t think I’m going to be doing that! At least, not this week.

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When to Start Sewing?

November 4th, 2011

Yes I have been eaten by my textiles class. 4 more weeks of brand new lesson plan drafting, prop & materials acquisition, teaching and learning, and things might get back to normal. Next week I get to teach spinning, which I am feeling more cheerful about. All of my K-5 kids managed to make a felted rope, ball and purse last week, so as long as we use the ‘park’ method of drop spinning which doesn’t require spinning a top and drafting wool at the same time I think we will make it through. Although I need to work running around in circles into my lesson plan for the younger boys. I’m thinking braiding rope hung from the ceiling.

Several people have asked me when is the ‘right’ time to start sewing with your kids? I think around 1.5 they are old enough to start sticking a large embroidery needle through hooped fabric. Supervised of course. Penelope thinks it’s fun to sew like mama for about five minutes. One of my friends was shocked, and thought they might hurt themselves, but really, a needle prick is hardly traumatic compared to a skinned knee, and it doesn’t take them long to figure out that it is sharp. Plastic canvas is another way to start, or a square of thick felt.

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Card Weaving

October 14th, 2011

Rebecca's bracelet in progress

Card weaving, the beginning of a run of textile exploration posts, because as I’ve mentioned, I’m (co)teaching a class at Rebecca’s school. It’s really pretty cool, twice a year they get a run of six classes on one art subject for 3 hours on Thursday. And for these special classes the K-5 classes are all mixed up and they get multi-age classroom experience. So I need to test six weeks worth of textile exploration activities. Not going to make it, but I’ll be tackling the tricky ones. Like spinning. Not sure how well mixing kindergardeners and drop spindles will work. Actually I have a pretty good idea, but I’m going to try anyway!

But card weaving! It’s an ancient weaving technique that is incredibly flexible. You create the pattern by turning the cards different ways, each card can be turned independently of any of the others. (You can also just turn them all together as a stack to create simple stripes and chevrons.) It’s fun! And incredible! Way more interesting than the ‘plain weave’ that you get out of a simple one-heddle table loom. And very strong. I am learning so much about textiles and getting so excited I know, but look at the incredible gothic text worked into this Cursed Bookmark (I think Donna’s kids would love this) and these adorable little sheep and people (There are many more galleries of examples at weavershand). The Society of Primitive Technology has a good solid tutorial on how to get started, including how if you thread all your cards from left to right your belt will twist. This Basic Tablet Weaving page mentions how you can twist the cards around their vertical axis (flips the direction the threads are going through) which was a non-intuitive manipulation, but helped me rescue a twisting belt. And totally made sense once I figured it out. So many patterns! I love patterns!

Here is the basic loom I set up for the girls, you can hook the warp on a door or your toe & belt, any two points to tension it, but I thought they would do better if they weren’t tied to the work and they could get up and abandon it when they needed to! So I tied the warp from one end of a milk crate to the other, and that worked pretty well.

For the weaving I sat with Rebecca and said, ‘twist’, ‘pack’, ‘throw the shuttle’, over and over again, and both she and Ellie made it all the way through weaving a bracelet. There was a little bit of competition, which they did need to make it through the project. I would have adored this technology in high school, I think it will be great for the 5th graders, the kinders thought it was okay, but it didn’t light their fire. Finger loop braiding is another weaving technique I want to learn too, thinking about the grade school me. I remember seeing someone at my school doing it in 6th grade, and really wanting to know what they were doing, but being to shy and ‘cool’ to ask. Now I have the internet! Internet, I love you.

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