Drop Spindle Spinning Made Easy

If you want to make handspun yarn, you don’t have to use a spinning wheel. Drop spindle spinning is easy to learn, portable and less expensive when you’re starting out.

By Brenda Gibson
Published on October 14, 2014
article image
by Flickr/stichdiva

Whether you are an experienced crafter chasing the perfect yarn or a beginner looking for an outlet for your creative talents, The Complete Guide to Spinning Yarn (St. Martin’s Press, 2012) by Brenda Gibson will inspire you to get spinning. Beginners can learn basic techniques, from preparing and dyeing fiber to drop spindle spinning and wheel spinning, while more advanced spinners can explore recipes for a range of textured and colorful yarns.


One of the simplest ways of making a quantity of yarn is to use a drop spindle. Per hour of spinning it may be a slower process than using a wheel, but the portability of a drop spindle means you can spin in spare moments and this may increase your productivity.

The drop spindle provides the means of adding the essential twist into the fiber, keeping it under light tension while doing so, and storing the spun yarn. The techniques of woolen or worsted spinning apply equally to spinning using either a hand spindle or a spinning wheel. To start, you will need a small supply of prepared fiber, and a spindle with a leader yarn attached. I recommend you use a doubled leader with a loop in the end. In the following sequences, green arrows show spinning direction and red arrows show hand direction.

Spinning with a Bottom-Whorl Drop Spindle

The principle of spinning with a drop spindle is to set it in motion to add twist, allow its weight to provide the necessary tension to keep the newly spun yarn under control, and to use its shaft to store the yarn.

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