How much yarn can you wind onto a Turkish spindle?

By Amelia © February 4, 2010

One of the questions that came up in a recent Productive Spindling class was: How full can you fill a Turkish spindle?

The answer is: You can keep winding yarn onto your Turkish spindle (for how, see here) as long as you can reach the shaft and arms to remove them. If you wind on past the bottom of the shaft, you may not be able to push it out of the yarn ball. If you wind on past the ends of the whorl arms, you won't be able to pull them out, either.

Like this little over-full spindle:



Now, all is not lost -- I can barely see the bottom tip of the shaft, so it's likely I can push that out of the yarn-ball. And, once I start unwinding, I'll expose the arms and eventually be able to remove them, as well. Since this is a plied ball of yarn, I'll just be skeining it up to wash it.

The fiber is a yummy cashmere/silk blend, a tasting gifted by a friend at last year's Madrona Fiber Arts Festival. Interestingly enough, I made the spinning an exercise in stubbornness: the singles were spun on a very heavy mid-whorl Maggie, and then the plying was done on the super-light (10 grams, maybe) Turkish shown here (from Knotty by Nature Fiber Arts in Victoria, BC, Canada).

The 2010 Madrona Fiber Arts Festival is currently in the headlights, I've been preparing for the Exotic Fiber Spindling class. Emptying this little spindle will provide a useful example of skeining up finely spun yarn.

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Related posts:
How much yarn can I spin on my spindle?
How do you wind on a Turkish spindle?
What Turkish spindles do you like?
Click for a list of all spindle posts on Ask The Bellwether.

And you can see more of my Turkish spindles in my flickr queue.
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© 4 February 2010 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.blogspot.com/