Five new spindles! Two of them are already sold, but the other three are up on the shop, including a new model, rim weighted!

And here’s a close up of one of the new ones.

Spins really well, I have to say. I test every spindle before it goes out to determine if it’s balanced well and if it has an “ideal” point to hook the yarn through as you spin. These, as rim weights are prone to do, spins way long but is harder to crank up quite as fast. You might also notice that this model has a significantly narrower shaft (and a tiny bit longer) than my other top whorls.

And now, my hands are all crampy from holding and sanding whorls and carving shafts.

Mokey says, “I’m cuuuuute, there, now you took the photo… will you throw the ball for me now?”

And that’s all for now!
~The Gnome

Then in the great spindle disaster weekend… disaster struck four of my spindles. Among those, my Damsel Monique and Bosworth Mini were repairable by me. The Turkish Delight still needs a new shaft…

But the Loki… somehow it ended up on the floor in it’s spindle bag and… got stepped on. I was horrified. The hook was totally bent over, the shaft snapped off right at the whorl. I was heartbroken!

So, recently, I finally saved up some money and emailed the fabulous Elizabeth, owner and crafter of Greensleeves Spindles.

After a few emails, I mailed the poor sad whorl off to Utah for rehabilitation. It came home the other day! With a *beautiful* new shaft, even prettier than the original!

Huzzah! My favorite high twist fine yarn spindle is back! PERFECT for silk.

And now some photos of stitch markers recently made for inclusion in large ($50+) orders. Center ones are jade.

Tiger’s eye and smokey quartz

Malachite and sodalite

And now your daily dose of gratuitous cuteness…

That’s all for now!
~The Gnome

I keep thinking that I’ll do an addendum to it, or add something or what have you. But I don’t. So… I’ll post it as is. If it needs a new version, or an addendum, then you – dear readers – can tell me what you’d like to see.

So, here’s a small video I made about bottom whorls. Specifically it was meant to address two of the big myths I’ve seen spread about.

1) Bottom whorl spindles are heavy

2) You can’t spin fine on a bottom whorl

There’s also some basic explanation of how to use a bottom whorl, if you’re interested. Personally, I love my bottom whorls. I want to get another at some point, since my big one tends to be full of plying projects as it’s my longest shafted spindle (see earlier post with 4.2oz of icelandic plied onto it).

So, without further ado, here it is. Bottom/low whorl spindles.

Let me know if you have questions, comments, etc!

P.S. Thanks here to Tom, for filming this for me.

That’s all for now…

~The Gnome