Going round in circles

Yesterday afternoon I pulled out some Icelandic roving and my Turkish spindle and started to play.  (And that sounds like a small world, right?  All I needed was a Belgian waffle and a Brazilian... um, nevermind)

Here's a video all about Turkish spindles, with Abby Franquemont, who is the Master of All Things Spindly.  I watched that one, as well as several others, as I got ready to give my new toy a whirl.

Assemble the parts.

I love how it sits at a jaunty angle when at rest, rather than rolling off into the next room when it hits the floor.  Or worse, rolling towards the nearest cat, who will be utterly convinced that you've brought it the Best New Cat Toy EVER.  (Woohoo!)
There was a learning curve, combined with a re-learning curve.  I haven't done any spindle spinning in at least 3 years, and I've only used a top-whorl spindle.  The weight distribution of the bottom-whorl was a little hard to get used to.  (I may try to assemble this one upside down and see it it's usable that way.  Experimenting is always fun.)  (Well, not always, but usually.)  (Well, sometimes.)

Once I got some singles built up, I pulled the pin,

yanked off its arms,

and was left with a little center-pull ball ready to be plied.
I tied the leader back to the spindle

and plied from both ends and ended up with a sweet little ball of yarn.

It's not my best spinning ever, but it's by far not my worst, either.  (Full disclosure - there was a lot of cussing involved in the plying process.  Those singles were really lively and prone to twist.  With each other, with themselves, with my hair, with the spindle itself.  It wasn't all "Tada!  Yarn!") 
And even though it's all neatly packaged in a nice center pull ball, I'm going to hunt up my kniddy knoddy and wind it off into a skein so I can soak it to distribute the twist a little better. 
I'm really pleased with this new spindle.  It's fun that it disassembles to pack flat, which makes it beautifully portable.
I'm already planning to make a bag for it, too.  Because obviously I don't have enough to do.

I used to be good at math....

When my father gave me his old spinning wheel, he included the lazy kate and 3 bobbins. This worked great as long as I was spinning 2-ply yarns, but left me unable to spin 3-ply - I needed at least one more bobbin. At the last Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival, I picked up two more bobbins and happily spun my first 3-ply yarn - some alpaca that I spun and hand dyed in shades of blue as a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law. (It turned out beautifully, but I didn't think to get a picture. Argh!)
I don't know about other spinners, but I've never had my bobbins of singles come out even when I'm plying. In the case of the alpaca, I had singles left on two bobbins at the end of the project. (What with the pressure of Christmas fast-approaching, I skeined what I had, dyed it, and called it good. About 250 yards, as I recall.)
As I mentioned in a previous post, I washed a good-sized handful of cotswold fleece, carded it, and started spinning singles. I was trying to get something a little thicker than sock yarn for a change, so I worked hard at making my singles thicker, and planned a nice fat 3-ply yarn. I filled one bobbin, then another, then started the third, all the time eyeing the 2 bobbins of alpaca singles and thinking "Oh, no problem. When the time comes, I'll just ply those off real quick, and be ready to make my 3-ply cotswold. Good thing I bought those extra bobbins!"
So, there I was, 3 bobbins full of cotswold, 2 bobbins each 1/4 to 1/3 full of alpaca. I sat myself down at my wheel, ready to roll.
Anyone spotted the problem yet?
I own 5 bobbins. I have 5 bobbins loaded with singles.
What on earth did I think I was going to ply those singles onto?
Doh!
After I finished pounding my head on the wall, I realized there was nothing for it but to ply the alpaca off onto a handspindle. After a brief search (anything less than 3 hours is a brief search, in my book...) I finally located one of my spindles. (For the record, it was in a plastic bag, tucked inside another plastic bag full of handspun laceweight being knit into a shawl, tucked inside another plastic bag full of alpaca roving, tucked into a box full of UFOs, under a box of odd balls of worsted weight yarn. Easy peasy. Once I eliminated the other 42 bags and boxes, of course.)

There, dammit! Plied at last!
(Note: this is one of my homemade spindles - I used a little wooden wheelie-dealie from Michael's, an old paintbrush handle with the business end pried off, and a miniature cuphook. I figured there was no sense investing a fortune in spindles until I decided whether or not I even liked spinning. And then, of course, I was used to spinning with my homemade gizmos, so there was no sense in buying anything fancier. I prefer to think of myself as frugal, though I have heard people mumbling "cheap" when they thought I wasn't listening...)

And now, I can get on with the cotswold!