Drop Spindles

Spinners Choice drop spindles are hand turned from exotic woods and well balanced. We produce our spindles in limited quantity and with lots of attention to detail. Our drop spindles are a joy to use when spinning wool or other fibers and are little pieces of art. Choose from top or bottom or small or medium size drop spindles. After you have tried our drop spindles, you will be back for more!!! Each drop spindle is tested for quality and performance before we send it out to our customers. Each spindle is unique!

Red Heart Drop Spindle offers a deep red coloration and a nice luster as well. $26.95

Quantity         

Small Top         Small Bottom 

Medium Top      Medium Bottom

 

 

Zebrawood Drop Spindle has attractive high contrast grain. This beautiful wood is from West Africa.  $26.95

Paduak Drop Spindle has a deep orange-red coloration. padouk is an exotic wood from West Africa.  $26.95

Pau Amarillo Drop Spindle offers natural cheerful yellow coloration combined with soft pearl like sheen. A beauty! $26.95

Exotic Mahogany Drop Spindle is a favorite among spinners. Nice reddish brown wood. $26.95

Purpleheart Drop Spindle has intense deep purple color and soft pearl like sheen. $26.95

American Black Walnut Drop Spindle offers a classic medium brown coloration. $26.95

Quantity   

Small Top    Small Bottom 

Medium Top Medium Bottom
 

 Free spinning instructions with 

• Well balanced, for easy spinning
• Beautiful selection of exotic and domestic hardwoods   
• Top or bottom whorl
• Brass hooks
• Finely finished whorls
• Wide weight range

Light Weight Drop Spindle

Extra Value Priced drop spindle! Spindle with great balance for fast and fine spinning. Weighs just under one ounce. Choose from top or bottom whorl. Unfinished Drop Spindle can be used as is or stained and painted in your favorite colors.

Beginers Drop Spindle

Extra Value Priced Drop Spindle! Basic drop spindle for beginning and advanced spinners. Choose from top or bottom whorl. Teach yourself or a friend how to spin with this nifty little tool. Unfinished Drop Spindle can be used as is or stained and painted in your favorite colors.

NEW! Schacht Hi-Lo Drop Spindles

Schacht's popular drop spindles just got better. The new Schacht Hi-Lo Spindles offer the best of both whorls: a brass hook at the top for high-whorl spinning and a grooved shaft for low-whorl spinning. Two sizes offer a broad spectrum of spinning capabilities: 3" (2.2 ounces), and 2" (1.1 ounces). Maple.

Louet Sheep Drop Spindle

Drop Spindle from Louet with fun sheep design is perfect for beginning spinners or for spinning medium yarns! Watch the sheep twirl and have fun. Choose from top whorl spindle or bottom whorl drop spindle.

Schacht Pear Tahkli

Supported spindle with a brass shaft and pear shaped maple wood whorl. For fine spinning.

Drop Spindle Kits

Basic Drop Spindle Kit

Beginners spindle and two ounces of roving for your spinning pleasure. FREE spinning instructions from Spin-Off magazine included. All for one low low price of $12.95. Makes a great gift too!

Deluxe Drop Spindle Kit

"Spin It" book by Lee Raven, written specifically for beginning drop spindlers. Covers spinning, plying, fiber selection an more! Beginners spindle and two ounces of roving for your spinning pleasure included. All for one low low price of $24.95. Makes a great gift too!

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Learn to Spin Silk Kit

Silk... the stuff of dreams! Have you dreamed of silken yarns, their moonlight shimmer cool and fresh ? Well here is all you need to get started to spin luscious silk! Includes book Ruth MacGregor's book "Learn to Spin Silk on a Top Whorl Spindle", 2 ounces of shimmery Tussah Silk and light weight top whorl drop spindle! This book will teach you all about silk, how to spin and ply it and making a skein as well as troubleshooting. Learn how to spin exotic silk with this fun kit!

Remember: Drop Spindle Kits make great gifts!!

Drop Spindles

Many spinners start out with a drop spindle, a bit of fiber and the willingness to learn how to spin. Others skip the drop spindle in favor of a spinning wheel, with which you can spin much faster…. but wait a minute? Spin faster?… Who needs speed anyways, hand spinning is all about creating, loving what you do, and having fun. Hand spinning is a creative outlet, allowing us to literally “spin our dreams” into thread. Create unique fiber blends, color combinations and yarn textures. You are the designer and the master of your own yarn. Only your fantasy and the sky is the limit. The yarn you spin is yours by design!

And what about the countless times you could not take your spinning wheel with you? It was too big, to heavy or just not worth it. Ever heard of any one bringing their spinning wheel to spin on the bus, at the doctor’s office or during meetings? Well, a drop spindle will let you recuperate this lost time, thus making up for speed.

  Drop spindles also connect us with the past, thus spinning with this simple tool will in effect continue the thread of time that binds us to our ancestors. Just think of the thousands of years in which hand spindles provide the only way to obtain clothing from fibers. This simple device created every bit of yarn from coarse linen thread for sails, so that ships could explore the oceans, to the finest silks for royal robes. Since spinning wheels did not appear until the middle age, the drop spindle was one of the most important tools on hand. Everyday clothing, table linens, tapestry and embroidery yarns, everything was spindle spun.

Spindles come in a wide array of designs, weights and sizes. Keep in mind the lighter a spindle the finer yarn you can spin, meaning a heavier spindle (3 to 4 ounces) is most suitable for thicker yarns. Here a just a few of the spindle types available:

Bottom whorl spindle, most popular of all spindles, can vary in weight and designs. Many beginners start with a relative heavy (2 ounces or more) bottom whorl spindle, but you can also learn easily on a top whorl.

Top whorl spindle, some spinners prefer these, since with a little bit of practice the top whorl spindle can spin a lot faster than a bottom whorl, thus putting more twist in your yarn.

Turkish spindle, also called cross arm spindle this tool will let you wind your yarn into a ball as you spin. Pull out the cross arms when you are done and presto! You have a center pull ball.

Navaho spindle, traditional used for Navaho spinning. This is a supported spindle suitable for relatively coarse yarns and fibers. Navaho spun yarns are spun twice. In the first stage the fiber is soft spun, meaning just a little twist is allowed to hold the fibers. In the second stage this fiber is re-spun resulting in the final yarn

Support spindle offers a bead or disk shaped whorls. Taklis are used for extreme fine fiber spinning such as silk and cotton. Often used with a spindle bowl.

Find out more about spindles in “A Handspindle Treasury” All you every wanted to know about drop spindles. A must for the serious spinner.

Or check out "Spin It" a beginners guide to drop spindle spinning! Includes basic "how to" overview of fiber preparation and several projects to enjoy!