The idea of spinning my own yarn has been bugging me for days.  Most of the yarns I used for knitting were imported and some of them were quite expensive.  Man has been hand spinning yarn since the ancient days so I know it is not impossible, plus, there are lots of how-to videos on youtube, which also means hand spinning yarn is not an obsolete technology.

So yesterday, with my old mini-lathe and a piece of 2-by-2 I pulled out from the firewood pile, I turned myself a dealgan, a whor-less drop spindle used by the people of the north... or the west... I am not sure.  Animal fiber is a bit difficult to find in our country, so I settled for something readily available as substitute, a 400-gram bag of cotton roll.  It was a bit frustrating at first, but I managed to get the hang of it in a few minutes.  I finally settled for a park-draft technique, where I spin the dealgan a few times, hold it between my knees, and while maintaining the tension of the yarn, draft the cotton a few millimeters at a time as it is taken up by the twist created by the spinning of the spindle.  Drafting was quite difficult as the cotton fiber is very short.  So I have plenty of bumps in my yarn.  But I am sure with some more practice, I can have the smoothest yarn possible for a drop spindle and a cotton fiber.  Maybe carding the cotton might help also, but right now, I am not sure how I should get one.  Carding boards go for $30 and up at Amazon!

Anyways, I think I was able to spin a couple of yards last night.  Probably not something a yarn hoarder would want in his stash, but it is definitely a yarn.  The dealgan is quite an amazing tool.  It fascinated me that all you need is a weighted stick to make a yarn or thread out of a fiber... imagine what a Spinning Wheel can do!