I thought that today would be a good day to talk about what was on my spindles as I’m going to Spinners Gathering on Saturday and it all might change by the time I get back. :)

First, on my Cherry wood spindle (30g from Wildcraft ) I have a Spindlefrog Batt of delight in a colourway I’ve called Strawberries and cream:

The batt is a blend of merino, angora and sparkle totalling 59 grams. I’m spinning it thick and thin and allowing in nepps for a yarn with a little bit more character. This will hopefully be a hat for my little girl come winter. (And thanks to Rosii for the batt in the first place!)

On my Hedgerows resin spindle (31g from Wildcraft as a part of my May fibre club shipment — thank you Karen !) I have some Wildcraft English Wool blend in the Spring colourway. The is the second bobbin of three, so I’m hoping that I might even finish this off at the Gathering on Saturday.

And this is the best view:

I love resin spindles. I’m hoping to buy a chilli pepper one as some point in the nearish future. :)

As I’ve finished spinning the singles for the Rice Pudding colourway, I’ve started spinning the next braid for my Lizard Ridge Blanket ( Rav link ). It’s called spring.

And here’s the first third of the braid spun up.

I’m not 100% certain this colourway is going to end up in the blanket. I think this will definitely be one of those yarns I’ll have to see with the rest of the yarns to see if it fits.

I have a secret to tell. I’ve never plied on a spindle. I wind my singles off my spindle and ply them on a wheel, so I thought I’d share part of that process.

First, we need a few supplies:

You’ll need a pair of scissors, some tape, a toilet roll liner, a ball/wool winder and your full spindle.

Take the liner and cut it open lengthwise:

Set up your ball winder and tape the liner so that it fits on the wool winder. You’ll need to tape it on fairly snuggly so that it doesn’t fly off whilst winding but not so tight that you can’t get if off once you are done. Put two little notches at the top of the liner that are opposite each other to enable you to hold and secure the tail of your single:

Thread your single through your wool guide and secure it to the liner and start winding your centre pull ball:

To hold my spindle I usually hold the end of the shaft with my hand and place the top of the spindle onto a non-abusive surface. I like the top of my ball winder box:

Once I’ve wound off a significant amount of singles I can usually just hand hold the spindle without any support.

Once my singles are wound I tend to label my liners so I know which order I need to ply them. This is useful when navajo plying or when working a larger project so singles can be plied together in a certain order.

See those three bobbins? That’s the all of the Rice Pudding colourway I blogged about a couple of days ago. They are currently in the plying queue and I’m hoping to have some finished yarn to show next week once it’s been plied and set.

Thanks to a few enabling friends of mine, I decided to try spindling. Here’s my first attempt on a spindle I borrowed from a friend:

It’s hand blended merino, approximately 62 WPI as a single. I haven’t plied any of it yet, though, as I’m waiting to spin up a bit more of the singles so I can make a nice lacy scarf or shawl. This particular project is something I can see me doing in spurts so I just do a little bit any time the spindle is free.

This is my new spindle:

It’s a Wildcraft lightweight Cherry wood spindle, approximately 30g. It’s really lovely and I’ve quite enjoyed spinning on it, especially in public.

This was the first fibre on that spindle:

The fibre is an English Wool Blend dyed by Wildcraft in the Rice Pudding colourway. I’m spinning it up so that it comes out as (hopefully) a 3-ply worsted weight yarn. I’m not splitting the braid at all as to keep the colour repeats as long as possible and I’ll navajo ply the singles when the time comes. I have this insane idea to spindle spin a Lizard Ridge blanket for our bed. I’ll keep you post as to the results. In fact, you’ll probably hear about this project for years and years to come. ;)