I'm Spinning Again! :D

Inspired by my dear friend +Beth Reed, I decided to start spinning again.

At first I was going to try using one of my drop spindles. I have both top + bottom whorl spindles, but I quickly got frustrated with them both. I decided to use my Mayan spindle instead.

For those of you who've never seen or heard of a Mayan spindle  (I've also heard it called a paddle spindle), it's an interesting looking contraption. It consists of two parts: a blade and a handle. The handle slips in (smirk) a hole in the blade, and you spin the blade around the handle sort of like one of those spinning party favors that make noise. You use the park and draft method to spin fiber.

This is me with the spindle parked between my legs while I draft the fiber. Rawr.

I find it better and easier to use than my drop spindles. I find my yarn is more consistent and even...even after not spinning for over a year! I prefer it over a drop spindle, and am much faster using it. 

My drop spindle yarns tend to be extremely thick and thin... ranging from fingering to bulky. This seems to be between fingering and sport, so not too shabby, if I do say so myself. I'm using some BLF roving I got a couple of years ago in a swap. It's actually a nice royal purple, but I took these pictures at night, and the flash always washes out purples on my phone -___-

One of these days I'll post a video of me using my spindle, but I found a similar spindle in action on YouTube:

See? Easy peasy.

If you would like more information, I found the following links to be of much help to me:

http://www.finniwig.com/mayainst.htm

http://kero1au.tripod.com/id29.html

http://kero1au.tripod.com/id28.html (this link has a tutorial to make your own!)

I expect to finish spinning the rest of the 4oz roving soon. Pictures of the finished yarn to come! :D