As the year comes to a close, I had one last project to finish. Back in September, I prepared some rolags out of waste fibre when I was carding the Finn/Gotland locks. These were not the full of chaff and yuck parts. Just stuff that stuck in the cards but wasn’t short or full of neps.
I started spinning them on a cross-arm spindle shortly afterwards. It drafts beautifully and smooth despite being waste wool.
Back in January of 2021, I designed this little spindle in response to a couple of requests for lighter and smaller spindles. I hadn’t had a lot of testing time though. Before I released them to testers, I wanted to see how this new design would work – were the arms sloped too much that fibre would fall off them? Would the cop tangle when plying? What sort of weight could the spindle hold?
That meant filling it to and possibly past capacity. The spindle in this photo is 12g including the custom turned shaft. As a general rule of thumb, a cross-arm spindle will hold around its weight in yarn. Careful wrapping and experience can often get more yarn on the spindle but it will have slowed significantly by this time.
Towards the end of this spin, the over one / under two wrap started to slide off a little but it was very stable until about the last 1/4”. There was still enough room to do a little more over two / under one wrapping but this is the half way point of the rolags I have and I felt like I had tempted fate enough already.
That is one rotund little turtle at 13g of fibre! To put that in perspective, the fibre under the spindle in the following photo is also 13g. 
By the end of the first spindle, I was spinning it supported just to get enough twist even though it was wonderfully fast at the beginning. As expected really.
So next, on to the second turtle. I have enough of these test spindles that I just grabbed a second spindle This time in my favourite Ultramarine Blue.
The singles were finished before I went to bed on Dec 30th which left me the 31st to ply on the eSpinner. 
Sometimes I ply on the spindles but I do find it slow, especially a suspended (drop) spindle, so the eSpinner to the rescue here. I could hang out in the living room with Ryan and the cats and spin. With this being a long wool, the yarn can become really wiry and unpleasant if you add too much twist so I was aiming for a low twist finished yarn. A slow hand and an easy touch, you might say. I might have erred a little too much to low twist because there were 2 places the yarn drifted apart while I was skeining it. It was strong enough to wind onto the bobbin but not off of it. I found that fascinating. The rest seems fine though so it might have been inattention at the time. Here’s the yarn before a steam set:
And after a steam set. The angle of twist has changed a bit thanks to the redistribution of twist and reactivation of the crimp.
Final stats after a steam set:
- 26g of fibre, 113.72 yds
- 1983.98ypp grist, 437yd/100g (or 3.5oz)
- a little lighter than fingering weight
Verdict on the little spindles? I like them. They behaved exactly as I expected. The singles were completely fine coming off them and they remained well balanced throughout the spin.
While I had the eSpinner out, I also plied up this silk sample I had spun on one of my support spindles. I plied it with a silk sewing thread that blended so well. I’m very pleased with it.
Its final stats after a steam set:
- 6g of fibre, 84.875 yds
- 6416.44 ypp grist, 1415yd/100g (or 3.5oz)
- firmly in the lace weight category
With that, I end the year with 3 sample spins on the go. One cotton on the charkha, one flax on the Lendrum (on a printed bobbin so the moisture from spinning flax damp would damage my wood bobbins), and one spindle spin of Merino. This is the fewest number of WIPs I’ve entered a new year with in a long time. I’m feeling like casting on something cabled though and I got a beautiful braid of merino/silk/flax for my birthday so I’ll soon have more on the go.
Another post coming hopefully Tuesday if Canada Post gets their stuff in gear. Tuesday’s post was written before this one but that post is for after the final Christmas gifts arrive to their destination and Canada Post missed the deadline last week and currently says Tuesday for that delivery. I plan to have that post go live sometime the same day it arrives.
Today’s post title comes from Slow Hand – The Pointer Sisters. It seemed fitting since the world learned today that Anita Pointer has passed away.
Happy New Year everyone.