Finishing some spindled yarn

During the seemingly endless ever-the-same days of COVID home time, I found myself wanting to experiment with spindles. I was definitely influenced by the Summer 2020 issue of PLY magazine, which was devoted to Supported Spindles. I ordered this beautiful supported spindle from Straddle Creek Spins on Etsy and began playing around with it:

I've spun a fair amount of singles yarn on this spindle, but I haven't plied or finished any (yet). Stay tuned!

Not long after this arrived, I realized that I had purchased a cross-arm spindle at MDSW in 2019 that criminally, I had never used. I got it from Subterranean Woodworks at their booth in the main exhibition hall. 2019 was the year I also got my new Flip rigid heddle loom, which I immersed myself with in the weeks following the festival (and the two weaving classes I took there). I think the spindle just got forgotten in the excitement! It was small, out of sight, and therefore out of mind. But NO MORE. I got it out and found some leftover Cheviot top from another project to play with. 

(By the way, I am using the term "cross-arm spindle" rather than "Turkish spindle" because there's nothing particularly Turkish about this style. It is used around the world. In Turkey, this style and others are used. I'd rather use descriptive, culturally neutral language since this spindle is not actually from Turkey.)

One thing I adore about cross-arm spindles is the appearance of the cop You wind the singles yarn over and under the arms, and as it builds up, it makes a "turtle." If you spin colorful hand-dyed fiber, the look of the growing turtle is endlessly fascinating. 

This fiber coordinated especially well with the spindle arms, which only added to my sensory pleasure. By November, I had removed one turtle and was coming to the end of a second one. 

I let my turtles rest for a LONG time - like maybe a month. I read that it is helpful to rest them much longer than singles on wheel-spun bobbins. One thing that many spindlers like about this style of spindle is that you can make a 2-ply yarn right from the turtle (a turtle is essentially a center-pull ball). I decided to try this with my first turtle, with mixed results. 

The turtle became quite tangled toward the end, and I had to throw away some of the fiber. I had trouble with my singles being caught in each other. Perhaps my singles were a bit too loosely spun? I suspect that my problem areas were at the joins, when little wisps of fiber were able to embed themselves in nearby singles in the turtle. The resulting mini-skein is only 66 yards long and weighs 14 grams. It is very light and lofty. I may have spun it a bit loosely, but the result is a fairly soft yarn:

I didn't want to try to ply from both ends of the second turtle. I rewound the singles into a storage bobbin to help me manage it better, and then I chain-plied it (this makes a 3-ply yarn). I only got 40 yards of this and it weighs 13 grams. My twist angle seems to be a bit tighter in this yarn, as well:

Here are the two skeins together. The 2-ply yarn on the bottom was made from the first turtle, and I imagine my consistency probably improved in the second turtle. I'll just have to spin more to find out!

I plied both of these on my wheel. I wasn't feeling quite confident enough to ply on the spindle... and one should probably use a heavier spindle to ply than is used to spin singles, anyway. I have a heavier spindle, but I wanted to work with the wheel because I knew I would need my hands to manage the turtles.

This little cutie is so portable. It's easy to pick up and put down. I look forward to more turtles and tiny skeins of yarn. I bought a course on spinning with cross-arm spindles and learned about a way to splice turtles together to get a longer length of yarn. I want to try that, too.