This was interesting to watch. It reminds me of the JillianEve channel. She does a lot of spinning with spindles.

Ancient Egyptian murals (idk the correct word) show spinning and plying done with a top whorl spindle in a drop style, which you are referring to as American. It is an ancient style of spinning and predates the European Middle Ages and the European colonised “Americas”. A quick fact check on the internet will yield many images showing the top whorl spindle being dangled. Could this drop style have come to Britain over the Moors arrival to Ireland? It could have been a purely independent variation of spindle spinning. Your backdrop and clothes make for a beautiful accompaniment to your exhibition. Thank you for your demo.

Excellent!! If I can get my hands on a medieval weighted spindle, I will try suspended spinning. It all depends on the tool. I love my support, short fibre spindles, but have a few drop spindles. Looks like you've mastered the Europeon spindle. THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS!!

Great stuff. All the old Dutch imagery I found uses the distaff and diagonal hold.

And the people who spun this way historically would have just called it "spinning"! I remember a conversation between North Americans about what to call a knit cap you wear to keep your head warm in winter. I grew up in Colorado and called it a stocking cap, but the Californians called it a beanie, the woman from Toronto called it a Toque, and the girls from the southern United States called it a toboggan, which I always understood to be a type of sled. And people will get heated over things like this!

There are photographs circa 1930s [taken by Margaret Campbell of Canna] in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland , of a crofter lady, using a dealgan spindle to spin singles, from a distaff of wool, sitting inside her tiny “black” house. A dealgan was still used till 1996 in the Isle of Harris, to ply singles for sock knitting.

I was just shown your video. I have been using a drop spindle for 45 years. I'm as fast as on a wheel. KZbinr Sally Pointer can also remark on grasped spinning. I learned grasped spinning for about the first six months until I had gained confidence and speed required to drop spin. When you first started speaking your spinning was slow and tightly overspun and you have wool on a linen distaff. It took me awhile to figure out you weren't spinning linen. Your spindle looks so much like mine and Sally Pointer's right down to its size and flywheel weight I have little doubt that if you kept it up you'd learn drop spinning. Everybody does. I stand and take two spins wrapping the first 6' between elbow and thumb and take another spin to spin 12' of yarn before wrapping it on the spindle. It's a dance. Your problem with the archaeologists is because this is like listening to a child talk about riding a bicycle who still has training wheels on his bike. The spindles you find in spinning stores seldom work well. The big wooden flywheels are for teaching only. They're much too slow for any practical use. The size and weight requirements of a spindle flywheel are pretty tight but within those constraints there can be a lot of leeway. I once got stuck in New York and went to a dog grooming salon and said I was a spinner. They gave me the entire fleece of a husky they had shorn that day. I took a bus home to middle America. I took a potato and stuck a pencil through it and used them as a supported spindle (set on the floor of the bus) and spun the dog's hair into enough yarn to crochet my sister a hat. Really warm hat but if you wet it it smelled like a dog.

I want to hire him for our companybut I'm not sure how to beak clink IT issues for classification.

I see you are throwing half hitches, it looks like using a drop spindle.

The one thing that is not quite clear to me is how to hold the supported spindle in "grasped" spinning.

Awesome! That explains everything now for me! I always found French spindles a bit weird now I get why they’re shaped this way!

Dealgan is used standing. The women used to walk with them.

hi, a nice version of the European "finger tip grasp" spinning style kzbin.info/www/bejne/aqXNiKxppd-AqtU

🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸

Thank you for showing us the comparison. It makes such sense. I'm just learning and finding it frustrating having to keep stopping and starting - the European style goes more smoothly - I will concentrate on that from now on but must get a distaff - or a stick so I can do it easier. Thank you

Oi, can you share with us where you got your shaft and whorl? I have to admit, this style of spindle has caught my heart and won't let go! Not to mention, the interchangeable nature of it has just enchanted me. It's so lovely to be able to change out the whorl when the yarn makes the spindle so heavy. Anyhow, thank you for saying all this! I hear a lot of talkin about spindle type (I am fair new to this) but not a lot of talk about preperation/drafting, which SEEMS to affect things quite a bit! So, thank you. I wish there was far more talk about the other elements, as you say. Perhaps a helpful chart about how all these various stles interact! But I am especially interested with clasped spinning because it seems so doable for me, often moving between sofa, computer, outside - as you said, moving between sustended, clasped, supported easily depending on where we are and what's going on. That sort of flexibility is so precious to me! But yes, I am looking for a spindlestick and whorl, are there makers you reccommend?

This is a huge help, I recently purchased some spindles from HFA and I'm still learning how to use them. This is a great tutorial, thanks!

I ask this question to all dyers, How long under wear and with washing do these dyes hold. How pale might they become over time? Lovely video btw thank you and gods bless you to find the color that you want.😊👺

The video I had been looking for for sooo long! I am French and can't even find any informations in French about French grasped spindle... Although it has been the most popular way of spinning in France for centuries!

This is a very interesting video, Thank you for posting it! This is my second time watching it. I'm still learning the different methods for spinning, but I find grasped (or as I call it, 'in-hand') spinning to be quite fun.

What weight and size is your whorl and where did you purchase it?

What is the length of your distaff? Which source did you use to determine the size?

Interesting video, I learned how to spin using a charkha, also one handed drafting, I find “the American “ way easier. I am new at spinning and am hoping to master one handed drafting. Very informative, thanks fir the video.

How long is a proper distaff that goes under one's belt?

Wow , the gardenia color is amazing. TY for all the showing of yarns and colors you got and how mordant..... Where is gardenia from (flower or lf...)? Do recall reading the first soak from Madder is yellowish. Hope you were well for the next workshop you did!

Many of Neil's wonderful spindles come with Lleyn wool, which I absolutely love!

Yep those colours are gorgeous :-)

Is much easier on body to spin on a drop spindle by drafting horizontally and not straight up.

I would like to spin, dye and weave my own linnens and wools, when is the best time to dye it (before spinning, after spining, after weaving? I would like to do it before weaving so that I could try patterns) and how should I approach it (I 'm afraid that doing it poorly or at the wrong time would result in felting of the fiber or tangling of the thread)

Amazing video, thank you so much! :) Love the colours that you tested, I will use this as a reference to our lingerie design :) you can later on see how they turned out : )We do sustainable underwear. www.qrucifix.com

The exhaust dyes are still really lovely! So is that burgundy.

What a great hubby! Really great results with your dyes, super impressive!

I’m not sure you read comments anymore, but if you’re still natural dyeing, have you ever tried Lincoln Green? I haven’t tried it, but you make it with weld and indigo, and it makes a bright, grass green. Hope all is well.

Thank you for the video! I was born in Europe, and I've seen this method as a child several decades ago. But I moved to the US in mid-90's. I got curious to find this method recently, and I only saw "American" style and all kinds of supported spindles. Now I know what to look for :)

Don't use cochineal if you're vegan or vegetarian.

Try standing up when you are spinning. Also, if you are going to review something, you might want to be proficient with it.

Thanks so much- I have just bought some spindles from Niddy Noddy and this was so helpful and thorough

Thank you for sharing this. How did you get the blue dye with gardenia? What specifically am I looking for? I would like to try the gardenia for blues.

Thank you so much. I am still learning about hand spinning and your breakdown of the various techniques and combinations of them is very helpful.

Do these reds fade quickly with sunlight, like modern reds do?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and techniques. Have you watched any of Lois Swales videos on KZbin? We probably need to remember that historically, spinning was a necessary occupation and with it came repetitive motion injuries and well as various injuries from other life activities and age. This led to people adopting various techniques and postures to make it possible to continue with the daily activities of life. I have found as I get older, and due to back, neck & shoulder injuries, my posture and technique in how I spin has changed a bit. On those days of pre-storm aches, I tend to keep my spindle closer with a shorter drop. I have also adopted the leg roll maneuver and can now use it with either hand. I even did drop spinning in a carriage throughout a parade recently, much to the delight and amazement of spectators. Since our ancestors didn't have videos, and spinning was not really classified as a unique and interesting/entertaining activity, we'll probably never know exactly the hows and ways of spinning in the past. But, we can continue to develop our own techniques and keep the interest alive. I went to a historical event in another state in 2017, and was thrilled to see a woman using a Great Wheel. Since the event staff had placed her off to the side, out of the main flow, she didn't have a lot of people around - Until... She allowed me and another lady to try our hands at using her Great Wheel. Oh what a wonderful device. Very meditative, much like my drop spindles for me. Suddenly, we had 2 families enraptured, and the daughters were wanting to know where to find such a unique device. One of the sons was trying to find the gears and motor that made it spin LOL - he couldn't understand how it worked without them. Anyway, all we can do is the best that we can do. Find as much info as you can (there are several on KZbin and papers on Academia - for free). Oh, and enjoy! If you're having fun, others will want to play as well.

The reason your spindle only spins for a short time is because it was made that way! The weight is in the centre of the spindle; therefore, it spins fast but for a short time. With a larger whorl, with the weight further away from the centre, it will spin for a very long time, but not very fast. This you should know already -- if you are a spindle spinner. Because of the way it was built, it would appear that this might have been used more for plying, which can be done relatively quickly, rather than spinning singles, which would require much more twist. Perhaps that is why you cannot find much on using it for singles. You need to review your method of winding the ball on the spindle. You are not doing it correctly! Even with a nostepenne, you do NOT wind around the spindle, but rather, the spindle (or the noste) should rotate to wind on the yarn. This you should know as well. "Set the twist". This is a myth. No one would do this on purpose, which is perhaps a reason why you do not find any reference to it in historical records. It was not done. Everyone knows it is only temporary. It's a waste of time. As soon as you get the yarn or cloth wet again, the twist will revert to the original twist, and the cloth will most likely bias or twist. You MUST ply (or spin a single) with just the correct amount of twist so it is reasonably balanced. You CANNOT hide your faulty work by "setting the twist", because you will soon be found out. No one who is spinning for a living can afford to do sloppy work! True, what you are doing today is not the way they did it in the past. Do not put your own interpretation of how these tools were used. It is true that you can use the spindle however YOU want to use it; no one is going to stop you. However, it would be wrong to tell people (who know nothing) that what you are showing is the way it was used. You were not there! It seems to me that someone should not spread false stories about how something was done when he/she doesn't know how it was done! Instead, that person should speak to someone who was there! Get the facts correct and then you will be much more knowledgeable about the whole process --- and can then teach it to others. That is my opinion.

You're very good at dyeing. That's incredible that soda ash will do that to the dye pot. And it gives a very vibrant purple. So cool!

Those are really beautiful skeins and fabrics!

My understanding is that gardenia can produce a range of colors. Out of curiosity, how did you get the blue specifically? Excellent video!

soda ash. very natural indeed.

Excellent! Thank You!

Did the Spotlight yarn you used, have a 'Superwash' finish? I have noticed with my experiments, that such a finish, [that makes the yarn machine washable, non felting] also makes subsequent skein dyeing darker/bolder/more fuller colour than it otherwise would be, if it was natural.

This is so helpful having the slow motion! Thank you very much. I love the music can you tell me who it is?

Log wood make a bluey purple