Using a Turkish spindle for the first time was addictive with this light weight study and fun colored 3d
printed spindle from Turtle Made. As time passes you will find Halloween or Samhain is my favorite time
of year and the colors of purple, orange and green call to me. Fall colors are my go to but when it comes
to creating yarns I try to step out of the box. I love to search pictures of mother nature beautiful
creature and flower for inspiration. This spin was inspired by an image of the Raquet Tailed Roller bird. A
blend of merino dyed in a vibrant teal, cream white mohair and alpaca in buck brown and brown/black.
My fiber was blended on my 120 TPI cards into rolags for woolen prep, total fiber weight of 92.8g/3.3
oz.
My first turtle was a bit wonky at first. I watched a few you tube videos and knew it was over and
under to wrap my cross bars. But, my brain got it backwards and I did over one under two. Thankfully
after showing my girlfriend my progress after my first rolag, she told me to wrap under one bar and over
two. So with that I switch it up and went to work. Over a few weeks I got my spindle full, the wrap was so pretty,
I pulled the bars and decided to try plying as a center pull ball. At first I could not find my
center but with the help of one of my many crochet hooks I was ready to work. Normally I ply on my
wheel unless it is a sample, but I wanted to stay true to a spindle experience. So out came my ply
spindle, a heavier wooden top whorl. At first it was hard to keep the ball under control but eventually
things smoothed out until I hit the wonky spot where I corrected my wrap technique and in was hit with
yarn barf. The joys of working out my beautiful finely spun singles to ply was probably a 3 ring circus
show to watch but after the use of the footboard on our Cal king I got it all worked out and balled as a
two strand ball to ply. In the end my first “turtle” gave me 150 yards of lovely lace weight 2 ply yarn. I
still have 66g/2.3oz to spin.
