DIY

Why I Keep Spinning Yarn

…even though it’s slow and labour-intensive

Image: Author’s own

There are very few things in our current world that are as time-consuming as spinning your own yarn — especially if you use a hand spindle, rather than a spinning wheel.

(I use a top-whorl drop-spindle, FYI, but some people use bottom-whorls or turkish drops or support spindles or… there are a lot of types of spindles out there.)

People have been spinning yarn by hand for thousands upon thousands of years, even beyond our own species of modern human (homo sapiens) — even the neanderthals are thought to have spun yarn.

And many different cultures have come up with their own technical variations on the central theme — using weight and tension to encourage a mass of short fibres into a long, thin, thread.

It’s a science so sophisticated that it’s downright magical — and people (especially women,) have been doing it since the dawn of time.

The process is slow, and sometimes a little frustrating (…why does the yarn keep breaking, dammit?! Merino wool is too damn slippery!)