I will be running a hand-spinning workshop with the first year knitters next week. We have a couple of spinning wheels, but I have found it most successful for the students to work individually with drop spindles and take turns in the wheels. I make spindles as it gets costly to buy 12 or more of these. The ones this year are made from 50g air-hardening clay and dowel or chopsticks and decorated with beads pressed into the clay. To seal them I’ve painted them with PVA paints. On some the central hole was a little big, so a bit of glue has secured this, and a rubber band underneath. prevents any slippage.

Last year I used Fimo. This made lovely whorls, but was expensive. I found this year’s air hardening harder to work with, but that may be because I added a thicker outer ring to the whorl to improve the mechanics of the spin. I read this on a spindle-making blog, and it works. Just looks messier. I will try one in Fimo next.

Top: all the spindles. Bottom: the Fimo whorl.