Wrist Distaffs For Spindle Spinning & Unusual Knitting Needles

For the last few days a crazy, rather freakish, ice storm here in Southern Vermont resulted in the power being out for most of a 48 hour period in my home. I know lots of folks have experienced such a dilemma before, but I admit I can't remember ever spending two nights in a row without electricity and all that it runs in my entire life. Considering how minor this situation is in comparison to folks coping with floods, fires, homelessness and the like, I'd say I've been pretty damn fortunate. The early morning, winterish photo shows where my potatoes (in the black, raised beds) and sunflowers thrive in friendlier weather. The leafless trees in my yard allow the mountains in the distance to show their face in the background...something that's hidden during the lush green months.

Chris, musician husband, is away on tour in Dallas and that left my son, Alexander, and I to make the best of things together. We did well. When the smoke detector alarms began wailing, we calmly checked that nothing indeed was ablaze and set the detectors right. We cringed as ice-laden trees and branches fell LOUDLY in the forest behind our home and huge icicles plopped like falling stars from our roof edge onto our deck. By candlelight we skooted our miniature, metal playing pieces along the Monopoly board until Alexander's fake cash was depleted to zero by landing on my house-rich Boardwalk a few too many times. One earbud went into an ear of each of us as we listened to the Dooby Brothers, Marvin Gaye, Sting and lots of rap artists on Alex's Ipod, as we simultaneously played Advance Wars 2 on his Gameboy. Never mind that I had never played on a Gameboy before this (let alone any video game developed after Pacman)....I held my own and listened carefully to Alex's patient, repeated explanations of what the little doo-dad icons did. The bottom line: My 19 year old son and I enjoyed our many hours together - laughing, teasing, singing and jiving. I wouldn't have traded the experience for the world.

However, no electricity = no blog post. No electricity also = no evening fiber work...at least for me. I did try to spin, but the candlelight coupled with my rather poor night vision did not allow for the quality control I required. Made me think of how spoiled I am in comparison to spinners of days long past, working into the night, prior to the invention of electricity. Also made me think of how I'm not one to knit in the dark, such as in movie theaters. How about you? Do you mind knitting/spinning in less than perfect light?

A delightful gift was mailed to me this past holiday season. Ted, of Knitterguy, sent me a beautiful, handspun cotton, wrist distaff to be used when I spindle spin. Here's what Ted wrote about the tool:

The distaff is spun from, "...Sea Island Cotton, dyed for me by Danuta Kamocki at Alchemy Fibre Designs." "I wrote about spinning them (he made a few distaffs) in a couple of blog posts. Mostly I decided I wanted to spin a bit in the morning, rather than laying in bed listening to the news and hearing how the world was going to hell in a handcart." You can see Ted's blog post write-ups here:

http://knitterguy.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/06/cone_question.html

http://knitterguy.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/05/spinning_around.html

Ted continues: "When I get the fibre, it's fairly compacted, so I have to predraft to open it up; it can be pretty clumpy. I spin it on a 12 gram, high whorl spindle made by Adam Mielke, of Mielke's Fiber Arts. I think it's a Lizzie." (Ted also likes spindles made by Tracy Eichheim of Woolly Designs.) "Singles are wound onto a nostepinde 'til I have enough to ply. Plying is done on my Lendrum. I don't put a whole lot of twist into the singles; just enough that it holds together. There's alot of ply twist, though, because (for the wrist distaff) you want the skein twisting back on itself. The design for the distaff is by Rita Buchanan, and comes from Spin Off, Winter 1999."

Ted says, "People don't have a clue what they (the distaffs) are or how to use them. Any spindle spinner who's had their spindle wrap around a length of fibre figures it out pretty quickly though. I've often wished I could get a picture of me using mine."

Well Ted, if we lived near to each other, I would definitely have asked to take a photo of you spindle spinning using your wrist distaff. Alas, we're in two, different countries (Canada and the U.S.)....so here's a few photos of me using not only your wonderful, handspun distaff, but also two other wrist distaffs. Note that there is a photo of Ted's distaff by itself and also in use as I spin. Spinners-in-the-know will notice that I'm spinning with a Mongold spindle. You might even spy that I'm spinning Tussah silk top; in this case naturally dyed by me.

If we agree that a distaff is a tool that holds fiber (like having a third hand) in order for the spinner to use his/her own two hands to operate the spinning tool (in this case, a spindle) and draft the fibre, etc.....then my green watch, pictured on my left hand in one of the photos, is a distaff as it's temporarily securing the fibre at my wrist and safely out of the way of getting caught in the spinning spindle. This works well if there's only a small amount of fibre to hold at a time. Too much fibre hanging will still create the problem of the spinning spindle snatching fibre into it's whirling lair.

'course, I could have used my wrist itself as a distaff, if I had wound the fibre around it (no photo of this shown.) The only problem with winding the fibre on the wrist itself is that when you need to stop spinning for whatever reason, you have to either detach the unspun fibre from the spindle OR unwind the fibre from your wrist altogether.

Another neat wrist distaff is made out of metal. Knitters will recognize this tool as one where a ball of yarn can be placed on the upside-down V portion, with the yarn held on by virtue of the wooden beads on the ends. Because a swivel hook is attached to the metal bracelet, the yarn then turns freely when knitting. Same can be said when a spinner uses this device as a wrist distaff. I've used this particular distaff for many years.

One of the top photos shows my "plying" nostepinde, made from a pretty bird's eye maple...my all-time fave wood. I show this because Ted mentioned he wound his cotton/silk, handspun singles onto a nostepinde prior to plying on his Lendrum wheel. We'll have to ask him just how he went about doing this! Ted? In any case, do please note that my nostepinde is very smooth and unadorned, with only a groove and a small, smooth, round ball-topper. The reason for the lack of fancy turnings is because if you wind singles onto the "plying" nostepinde and actually keep the resulting ball on the tool, you can two-ply using the inside-beginning-of-ball-singles and the outside-end-of-ball-singles, without getting the singles hung up on fancy, wood turnings. Plus, with the plain nostepinde still holding the ball of singles, it defies the ball to "collapse" and tangle when in the act of plying. How 'bout I show this technique on next week's post?

In an e-mail from one of the spider's readers, Beverly said/asked:

"I ply onto the same spindle that I spun it (the singles) on. This spindle is not very large so my skeins of yarn only end up with about fifty yards of yarn. How do you make a skein that is 200 yards, like the ones you buy?"

I'll first answer by referring Beverly and others with this question to the past post, Storing Takli-Spun Singles For Plying. Though the post deals with taklis, one could use the info with singles spun on any spindle. That said, if your spindle doesn't hold much and that's the only one you have to ply with...and let's say you've no spinning wheel either....then please do remember that your spindle can only hold so much and that's it. Therefore, without a spindle that can hold more plied yarn AND without a wheel, you can only ply as much yarn, without knots, as that spindle can hold. But, if you have a yarn winder or even a niddy noddy, you can continue as follows: Ply as much as you can comfortably on your spindle. Wind the plied yarn on to a swift or niddy noddy. Ply some more on your now empty spindle. Knot the end of what's already on the swift/niddy noddy with what you plied the second time 'round on the spindle. Etc. etc. etc. Please remember, when yarn mills ply singles from their bobbins, even their bobbins can only hold so much. If someone wants an order requiring HUGE, plied skeins...even mills must knot the ends together. Any other ideas readers? Thanks, Beverly. Your comments and questions are most appreciated!

Lastly, you'll find a photo of some very interesting knitting needles, resting on a green background. When I lived in Bennington, VT back in the 80's, I was given these needles from a knitter named, Isabel. Our Green Mountain Knitting Guild was holding a holiday Yankee Swap. When it came for my turn to choose a gift, Isabel said something like, "You must pick this package." I wasn't disappointed, that's for sure!!! I don't know where the needles originated from or what they're made of (ivory? bone?). Isabel knew nothing about them either. They're cool though, eh? Readers, can you help with info/ideas? Has anyone ever seen anything remotely like them?