Spinner's Alphabet: What begins with Q? Quill!

By Amelia © September 21, 2026

Q

is for quill. There are so many meanings of this word. A Quill attachment on a spinning wheel or e-spinner lets you spin off the tip just like the quill on a great wheel or charka. And, you can make a paper quill on a wheel/e-spinner's quill or on a spindle's shaft so you can slide off the cop of fiber that you built up on the quill or shaft.

When your spinning wheel has a tip that comes to a point and that piece both does not hold a bobbin and is rotated when the wheel spins, then your spinning wheel has a quill. Some spinning wheels have Quill flyers - like Ashford and the Pocket Wheel. Some spinning wheels have Quill attachments that fit in the orifice like the HansenCrafts MiniSpinner.

This would have been the type of setup that pricked Sleeping Beauty, as a regular bobbin and flyer setup has nothing that could prick you. Though, there's no reason for the quill to end in a sharp point unless you are lacing it with something that will make someone sleep until kissed by a prince. But I digress.

My homemade quill with a cork and handy charka quill

If your spinning wheel has a centered orifice - for example, Louet's is not centered, it hulas around a center point - then you can MacGyver up your own quill for it by using a cork and a knitting needle that has a flat cap on the end. Make a hole in the cork to fit the knitting needle, and carve it down to fit in the orifice. Put the needle in the cork, then put the flat end of the needle and the cork into the orifice. Wa-la, you now have a quill attachment for your wheel! You're welcome.

Why put a quill on your spinning wheel? I have found three uses that will always make me prefer a wheel that can provide me with this option:

1. bobbin winder!!! So I can, if I need to, wind yarn off onto a storage bobbin, or onto a weaving bobbin for weaving. For this use, the quill needs to have a decent diameter, usually a US10 knitting needle does the trick, for a homemade quill. The Ashford, Pocket Wheel, and HansenCrafts 1/4" quill are all good for this task. Definitely this gives more utility to your wheel!
2. Super-fine spinning. A quill gives only the tension you make when you pull the yarn against the quill, no more - there is no brake, nothing is trying to pull the yarn out of your hands. So you may find this an easier way to spin super fine than using a bobbin and braking setup. Even double drive wheel have some pull against the yarn not created by your hands.
3. Large-inclusion art yarn. If what you want to include won't fit through your wheel's orifice, then you are either getting very fancy and adding things after yarn has gone through the orifice - and people have done this - or you need a quill. Wa-la, no orifice, the inclusions can be large and unwieldy. Dominos, anyone? Just a thought. Don't everyone go out and make domino yarn now. Or if you do, send me a picture!

Of course the original quilled spinning devices are great wheels and charkas. Fantastic devices, both of them. The really neat thing about charkas, and even great wheels, is the amazing ratios they have for high speed spinning. That's super useful when you want to spin fine. Which, see the ordered list above, is also a good reason to have a quill!

Book charkas in particular tend to have fine-shafted quills, and plenty of them. They will often be called spindles alternatively and they do look a bit like a spindle. So you can simply swap one out when it is full and start again with an empty one. But I have had upright charkas before, like the one shown here, a Reeves charka, that had a fixed quill. Seemed like it could be quite a chore to unwind all that newly spun yarn. But that is where the other quill comes into play. I can wrap my charka's quill with a paper quill - literally just tightly wrapped paper around the metal quill - and spin all my yarn onto that quill. Once it's full, I slide it off, and pop it onto my lazy kate. Put another paper quill on, and I'm ready to go again. On my Reeves charka I needed to make my own paper quills because nothing quite fit, there wasn't a perfectly sized straw or weaving quill (same deal - those are usually cardboard though people do use straws too). And frankly I have enough post-it style notepads in the rectangular size that I have a lifetime supply, so I don't search for straws for this task on my HansenCrafts MiniSpinner or my Pocket Wheel quills, I just reach for the post-it pad.

I will now also at times use these paper quills on my non-Turkish spindles - if the shaft is shaped so I can slide the paper quill off, I will put one on, fill my spindle, then slip the quill off onto a lazy kate and the spindle is ready to go again, easy-peasy. But if I forget to put one on, all is not lost - then I do reach for a straw, slightly smaller than the shaft, and slide the cop down the shaft and on to the straw. Held all in a line, the transition from shaft to straw is smooth enough that this works well. Enough that I no longer fret about making paper quills on my spindles.

And on my Turkish spindles? they don't need quills, the ball you wind is a stable configuration that does not need a center structure once it's off the spindle.

Whew! Who knew there was so much to say about quills. Have you used a quill on your wheel, or a paper quill on a quill or a spindle? Do tell.

This was truly the only Q I could come up with - do you have a spinning Q to add to the alphabet? Post it in the comments.

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© September 21, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/