Respect the Spindle: Spin Infinite Yarns with One Amazing Tool

Description

Enjoying a resurgence in popularity thanks to the current trend of DIY crafts, the hand spindle remains one of the most productive, versatile, and convenient tools for creating stunning fiber arts from home, as this beautifully illustrated guide from a veteran spinner and spindle aficionado demonstrates. With step-by-step instructions, this essential manual details the basic steps of spinning and then advances to the more complicated spinning wheel, showing how to use the spindle to make specific types of yarn, explaining traditional spindle spinning techniques, and detailing five simple projects designed to instill confidence in creating a variety of yarns with this simple tool. Combining fascinating historical narratives, traditions, and cultures from around the globe with vivid photography, this all-encompassing tour of the spindle also boasts easy-to-follow, contemporary techniques and styles that affirm the tool's enduring legacy.

Abby Franquemont is a second-generation textile researcher raised in both the U.S. and the Andes, where she was taught to spin on a spindle at the age of five. She has been spinning, knitting, weaving, and crocheting for over thirty years. She is currently a fiber artist, teacher, technical editor, and writer on spinning and related topics. Her writing has appeared in Spin-Off, Spindlicity, and Twist Collective, and she is a contributor to the forthcoming More Homespun Handknit.

This is much more than a technique book. There are 50 pages about spindles and the history of spinning, before you get to "Starting to Spin". The instructions are very well done, nothing is rushed and there are good photos of everything you need. I'd happily recommend this to a beginner. It is a very readable book. We have tales of Abby's own experiences as a spinner, a chapter on how spindles work (it does get a bit technical, but she does explain it all clearly), all spindle spinning and plying techniques well covered, and even a few pages on looking after your spindles and repairing them. A good read, excellent spinning instructions, helpful photos.-Yarn Maker