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Friday, February 09, 2007

Good Cop

The first cop is off my new spindle. The decorative turnings on the end of the spindle shaft made that an easy job. I just slipped a plastic straw as far as I could over the taper and then slid the cop down off the spindle and onto the straw. I want to make at least a two ply and experience has shown me that when I try to do that from both ends of a center pull ball I end up losing half the singles to tangled snarls.

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Ashley asked how much the spindle weighs. I wasn't able to answer her immediately because within seconds of opening the parcel I was spinning the lovely bluefaced leicester that was sent with it. I had to wait until that first cop was off to weigh the spindle. She weighs in at 1.2 ounces, which is only slightly more than the weight of the first cop.

This spindle has a wonderful luminosity. The lighter, orangish section you see in the picture has a beautiful depth and appears to move around like a tiger's-eye or star-sapphire stone. It's gorgeous. Steve did a wonderful job.

4 comments:

Dandy said...

that spindle sure is purty.
I've only used homemade spindle and they sure don't spin for a long time.. and I always get frustrated. I might have to look into a professionaly made one to get better results.

Maggie Ann said...

What a pretty sight! I miss spinning...still hoping to get a wheel though...eventually. Did I see a road pic under your fiber arts button earlier? I had this large picture of the road on my blog and noticed it on 'audioknits.typepad.com' too. I finally did get into my template and delete it. And, I switched to the new blogger.

Ashley said...

1.2?

WOw.... I thought it needed to be lighter to spin such thin yarn.

hm....


I love how you put the spun yarn on straws. genious. I'll have to try that.

Marlene said...

It may not be ideal for thin yarn Ashley, (I wouldn't know as I've only spun on spindles this weight or heavier), but it seemed to work fine for me. When the cop got heavier it was harder to prevent the roving from seperating before sufficient spin was in the yarn to give it strength. Perhaps it's the way I hold the yarn? I never really take my "forward hand" from the developing yarn, so the spindle is never dangling from unspun roving.