Drop Spindles: Spinning Yarn With A Weighted Stick

You can make yarn with a stick. Not metaphorically - literally a weighted stick that you spin while pulling apart fluffy fiber. The fiber twists into yarn, the yarn winds onto the stick, and about thirty seconds into this process you realize you're doing something humans figured out before they invented the wheel.

Here's what nobody tells you about drop spindles: they're quality control devices disguised as craft tools. A 50-gram spindle hanging from your yarn provides continuous feedback about whether that yarn can actually support 50 grams of weight. Can't support it? The spindle hits the floor. That's not failure - that's information. Your yarn just told you it needs more twist, or you drafted it too thin, or that particular fiber preparation hates you personally.

The physics are almost offensively simple. Take a stick. Add weight to make it spin longer (usually a wooden or stone disc called a whorl). Attach some fiber. Spin the stick to add twist. Pull the fiber to make it longer. Wind the twisted result onto the stick. Repeat until you have yarn or until you understand why people invented spinning wheels.

What makes this interesting is that every culture that ever spun fiber developed their own version of this weighted-stick concept, and those versions reveal fascinating things about local fiber and desired yarn. Cotton spinners in India couldn't use suspended weight because cotton fibers are short and weak when first twisted - the weight would just break them. Solution: rest the spindle in a bowl. Turkish spinners wanted center-pull balls of yarn and created cross-arm spindles that build the ball directly on the tool. Russian spinners carved solid wooden spindles without separate whorls, prioritizing lightning-fast rotation for incredibly fine thread.

Same tool, completely different executions. It's like discovering that every culture independently invented the knife but some made them curved, some straight, some with guards, and they're all correct for their specific use case.

The terminology situation is a mess. "Drop spindle" technically means any hand-spinning tool, but most people use it to mean "suspended spindle" - the kind that hangs in the air from your forming yarn. Supported spindles (the bowl-sitting kind) are also drop spindles, just... supported. The distinction that matters: does your yarn bear the weight during spinning, or does something else hold it up?

This matters because suspended spindles and supported spindles teach completely different muscle memory. A suspended spindle dangling from thick wool singles requires one set of hand movements. A supported spindle resting in a bowl while you draft cotton thread requires entirely different coordination. Both work. Both make yarn. They just approach the physics from opposite directions.

A spinning wheel costs $600-900. A drop spindle costs $30-60 and teaches you fiber drafting without the distraction of treadles, drive bands, and tension systems. Drafting - that hand coordination of pulling fiber into consistent thickness while twist travels up from the spindle - transfers directly to wheel spinning. The wheel just automates the twist insertion part.

Some instructors insist on spindles first: learn drafting, then add treadling. Others say jump straight to wheels because why practice on primitive technology? Both camps are right depending on how your brain processes new skills. If you're the type who needs to isolate variables, spindles eliminate mechanical adjustment from the learning equation. If you're the type who learns systems holistically, wheels provide the full context from day one.

What spindles do better than wheels: they fit in your coat pocket. They make zero noise. They're perfect for expensive fiber you only have two ounces of. They work great for sampling fleece before committing to wheel-spinning the whole thing. They never need maintenance beyond occasionally sanding rough spots. They operate in places without electricity or even chairs.

What wheels do better: speed, volume, consistent tension, your feet get to participate, you can spin for hours without hand fatigue. Production spinners making yarn for income use wheels. People spinning 20 ounces for a sweater use wheels. Anyone prioritizing yardage over process uses wheels.

But plenty of experienced spinners own wheels and still grab spindles regularly. Portability matters. Silence matters. The meditative quality of slow, intentional spinning matters. The ability to spin while walking, or sitting in a park, or waiting for a flight matters to some people more than efficiency.

The physics of drop spindles reveal something useful about yarn structure that wheels hide behind mechanical complexity. When a spindle falls, you learn immediately what went wrong - not enough twist, fiber drafted too thin, that slippery silk needs different technique than grabby wool. Wheels can compensate for marginal yarn through tension adjustments and faster take-up, which helps you produce more yarn but doesn't teach you what the fiber actually needs.

This is a weighted stick that hangs from fiber you're actively twisting. It provides real-time feedback about yarn strength, fiber preparation quality, and whether your hands are doing what you think they're doing. It costs less than dinner for two and takes up approximately the same drawer space as a rolling pin.

Suspended Spindles: Hanging From Your Yarn While You Make It

A suspended spindle dangles in the air, supported entirely by the yarn forming above it. You spin the whorl like a top, watch it rotate, and as it spins, twist travels up into the fiber you're holding. The spindle keeps spinning (momentum from the whorl's weight), you keep drafting fiber (pulling it thinner to add length), and twist keeps entering the fiber zone. When you've added enough twist and drafted enough length, you wind that section onto the spindle shaft and start again.

The yarn bears the entire weight of the spindle during this process. That creates a baseline strength requirement - your forming yarn must be strong enough to hold whatever the spindle weighs without breaking. This is why suspended spindles work brilliantly for wool (long fibers, naturally grabby, gains strength quickly with twist) and poorly for cotton (short fibers, slippery, needs substantial twist before it can support any weight).

Top whorl spindles put the weighted disc near the top of the shaft, right under a hook or notch. These tend to be lighter and spin faster. They're the sports cars of spindles - quick, responsive, require attention. You get more twist per spin, which works great for finer yarns that need lots of twist. The downside: they don't spin as long because less mass means less momentum, and they're bouncier during spinning, which some people find annoying and others find charming.

Bottom whorl spindles put the weight near the bottom of the shaft. More stable, less bouncy, spin longer. They're preferred for plying (twisting two or more singles together) because that extra stability helps when you're managing multiple yarn sources. They work well for heavier yarns where you want longer spin time between flicks. The trade-off: they spin slower, which means you add twist more gradually.

Weight matters enormously. A 25-35 gram spindle (about 1 ounce) works for most beginners learning on wool. Light enough to spin comfortably, heavy enough to maintain momentum, requires yarn strength in the beginner range. Go lighter and you need finer yarn with more twist - challenging when you're still learning to draft consistently. Go heavier and you need thicker yarn or stronger fiber just to keep the spindle from hitting the floor.

An 85+ gram spindle demands serious yarn. Thick singles, substantial twist, fibers that can handle tension. These are for intentionally chunky yarn or plying multiple strands. They're hiking boots - built for specific heavy-duty work, tiring if used all day for everything.

The whorl diameter affects spin time and speed. Larger diameter whorls (like a big disc) spin longer but slower - more rotational inertia, like a flywheel. Smaller diameter whorls spin faster but shorter - less mass to carry momentum. Rim-weighted whorls (mass concentrated at the outer edge) spin longer than center-weighted ones. It's the same physics that makes figure skaters spin faster when they pull their arms in.

Turkish spindles cross two perpendicular arms through the shaft, creating a structure that builds a center-pull ball of yarn directly on the spindle. Once the spindle fills with yarn, you slide the arms out and have a ready-to-use ball. No separate winding step. The arms add width but the whole thing still fits in a large jacket pocket. They're popular with spinners who value elegant solutions to multi-step problems.

Suspended spindles teach you about fiber behavior through immediate consequences. Draft too thin and the yarn breaks under the spindle's weight. Add insufficient twist and the yarn breaks. Use fiber with short staple length and the yarn... breaks. The spindle hitting the floor becomes a diagnostic tool rather than a source of frustration once you understand what each type of break tells you.

Supported Spindles: Resting While The Work Happens

Supported spindles sit in bowls, on your lap, on the ground - anywhere that bears the spindle's weight so your forming yarn doesn't have to. This changes everything about what you can spin and how you spin it.

Without weight stress on the forming yarn, you can spin incredibly fine threads. Cobweb-weight silk that would snap instantly under a suspended spindle's weight? No problem - the bowl holds the spindle. Short fibers like cotton, cashmere, angora? They work beautifully because they don't need to support weight before they gain strength from twist.

The technique differs from suspended spinning. One hand controls the spindle (usually flicking or rolling it to maintain rotation), while the other hand drafts fiber. You typically draft away from the spindle tip - pulling fiber backward and up while twist enters from the rotating tip below. It's a long-draw technique where twist enters the fiber supply and you pull the forming yarn away from that twist zone.

Russian spindles are the classic example - solid wooden shafts, no separate whorl, tapered toward both ends with one end sharper for spinning. You flick the spindle with one hand to set it rotating in a bowl (or on a smooth surface), then draft with your other hand while the spindle spins itself down. When it stops, flick it again. The tapering means the weight centers differently than a spindle with a separate disc, creating very fast rotation times - perfect for fine yarns that need lots of twist.

These spindles rotate at absurd speeds compared to suspended spindles. A good flick can keep a Russian spindle spinning for 20-30 seconds of continuous twist insertion. That's enough time to draft several inches of very fine yarn. The speed compensates for the interruption of needing to flick every 20-30 seconds.

Tibetan spindles are another supported variation - heavier than Russian spindles, often with decorative turnings, designed to sit in a bowl while spinning. They work well for medium to fine yarns from luxury fibers. The bowl can be ceramic, wood, even a half-gourd - anything smooth enough to let the spindle rotate freely.

The bowls matter more than you'd think. A smooth ceramic bowl lets the spindle spin longer with less friction. A wooden bowl with a slight hollow keeps the spindle centered. Some spinners use special cushions with a depression in the center - portable, soft, quiet. The bowl becomes part of the tool system rather than just a convenient surface.

Supported spindles let you sit back while spinning. No standing, no letting the spindle drop through space, no walking around while it spins. You can spin while sitting in a comfortable chair, or on the ground, or wherever you can position a bowl. It's a more relaxed posture than suspended spinning, which matters during multi-hour spinning sessions.

The yarn that comes off supported spindles tends to be loftier (more air between fibers) because the long-draw technique pulls air into the fiber structure. This creates softer, lighter yarn with more yardage per ounce of fiber. For expensive fibers like cashmere or qiviut, maximizing yardage from limited material becomes economically significant.

Why Spindle Weight Functions As Running Quality Control

Here's the thing about spindle weight that takes a minute to appreciate: it's not arbitrary. A 40-gram spindle provides a constant 40-gram test of your yarn's structural integrity. Every second that spindle hangs without breaking the yarn, you're producing yarn that meets a 40-gram strength specification.

This matters for practical reasons. If you're spinning yarn for weaving, that yarn needs to handle warp tension - potentially several hundred grams of constant pull. A yarn spun on a 40-gram spindle has demonstrated it can handle at least that much. A yarn spun on a 70-gram spindle passed a more demanding test. You're building strength testing directly into the production process.

Contrast this with wheel spinning, where take-up tension is adjustable and can be reduced to nearly nothing if your yarn is weak. The wheel will happily wind on yarn that can't support its own weight plus a suspended spindle. That yarn works fine for low-stress applications (loose scarves, decorative textiles), but put it under warp tension or knit it into socks and it fails.

The spindle teaches you about fiber preparation quality through this same mechanism. Well-prepared roving (fiber that's been properly carded or combed, with fibers mostly parallel) drafts smoothly and creates yarn that easily supports the spindle. Compacted fiber (compressed during storage or poorly prepared) fights your hands while drafting and produces weak spots in the yarn. The spindle drops. You learn to recognize preparation quality not through abstract principles but through immediate feedback.

Different fibers reveal their characteristics through spindle behavior. Wool with a long staple length (3+ inches) drafts easily and creates strong yarn quickly - you can use heavier spindles. Wool with short staple (under 2 inches) requires more twist before it can support weight - you need lighter spindles. Slippery fibers like silk need substantial twist before they cohere - start with light spindles even though silk is strong, because it needs twist density before that strength activates.

Some spinners maintain multiple spindles at different weights specifically for fiber sampling. Grab an unknown fleece at a fiber festival? Spin a quick sample on a 30-gram spindle to see how it behaves. If the spindle drops repeatedly, you know that fiber needs more twist, shorter drafting length, or lighter spindle weight. If it spins easily, you can move to a heavier spindle or know it'll work well on a wheel.

This diagnostic capability disappears once you move to wheels with adjustable tension. The wheel compensates for yarn weakness through mechanical adjustment, which helps production but obscures information about fiber behavior. You can spin marginal yarn on a wheel by reducing take-up tension. You can't hide marginal yarn from a suspended spindle - it drops.

Top Whorl vs Bottom Whorl: How Whorl Position Changes Spinning Behavior

Whorl position seems like a minor detail until you actually spin on both types. The difference in feel and behavior is substantial enough that most spinners develop strong preferences.

Top whorl spindles concentrate weight near the point where you hook or notch the yarn. This creates a short distance between the twist insertion point (the rotating spindle) and the point where yarn connects (the hook). That proximity means twist travels into your fiber very quickly - the moment you spin the spindle, twist is right there, entering the drafting zone almost instantly.

This immediate twist insertion works beautifully for fine yarns that need lots of twist. Laceweight, fingering weight, sock yarn - these want high twist density, and a top whorl spindle delivers that efficiently. Each spin of the whorl puts substantial twist into a short length of yarn. You draft a little, spin, draft a little, spin. The rhythm becomes quick and responsive.

The downside: less stability. With most of the weight up high, top whorl spindles wobble more during spinning. That wobble isn't necessarily bad - some spinners find it rhythmic and pleasant. Others find it distracting or worry about the spindle going off-balance and dropping. Beginner spinners often struggle with top whorl spindles initially because the wobble plus the quick twist insertion creates too many variables to track at once.

Bottom whorl spindles put weight low, near the bottom of the shaft. This creates a longer distance between the rotating whorl and the yarn attachment point (usually a hook at the top of the shaft). Twist has farther to travel before entering your drafting zone. This delayed twist insertion gives you more time to draft fiber before twist arrives - useful when you're learning coordination or spinning thicker yarn that doesn't need immediate twist.

The low weight position makes these spindles incredibly stable. They hang straight, rotate smoothly, and don't develop the wobble that characterizes top whorl spindles. This stability makes them preferred for plying, where you're managing two or three separate yarn sources and trying to maintain even tension across all of them. The spindle's stable behavior eliminates one variable from an already complex process.

Bottom whorl spindles spin longer per flick because more mass distributed across a larger diameter creates greater rotational momentum. Think of it like a flywheel - once you get it going, it keeps going. This longer spin time means you can draft more fiber between spindle flicks, which some spinners find meditative and others find essential for bulkier yarn.

The trade-off: slower twist insertion. If you're spinning very fine yarn that needs lots of twist, a bottom whorl spindle requires more frequent spinning to achieve the same twist density as a top whorl. You end up flicking the spindle more often, which can fatigue your hands during long spinning sessions.

Some spindles split the difference with mid-whorl or center-whorl designs - weight positioned somewhere in the middle of the shaft. These attempt to balance stability with twist insertion speed. They work, but most spinners eventually gravitate toward top or bottom whorl for their primary spinning because the compromise doesn't fully satisfy either use case.

Whorl shape affects behavior as much as position. A disc-shaped whorl with weight concentrated at the rim spins longer than a ball-shaped whorl of the same weight. Rim weight acts like a flywheel, storing rotational energy. Center weight spins faster but for shorter duration - all the mass near the axis of rotation means less momentum storage.

Turkish spindles complicate this entire taxonomy because the crossed arms create a whorl that's neither top nor bottom - it's perpendicular to the shaft entirely. The weight distribution becomes three-dimensional rather than concentrated at one point on the shaft. This creates unique spinning characteristics - very stable, relatively slow, excellent for medium-weight yarns, perfect for building that center-pull ball directly on the spindle.

Learning To Spin: Why The Spindle Drops And What That Teaches

The spindle hits the floor. This happens to everyone, repeatedly, during the first several hours of learning to spin. Understanding why it drops transforms frustration into information.

Most drops during learning come from insufficient twist. You draft fiber, the spindle rotates, but not enough twist enters the forming yarn before you allow weight to transfer onto it. The yarn can't support the spindle's weight because it hasn't developed structural integrity yet. Solution: spin the spindle more times before drafting the next section, or draft shorter lengths between spins.

The second common cause: drafting too thin. Even well-twisted yarn breaks if you draft it thinner than the fiber can structurally support. This happens when your hands drift apart while drafting - you intended to draft two inches but your hands separated four inches, creating a thin weak spot. The spindle drops at that weak spot. Solution: pay attention to hand distance while drafting, maintain consistent thickness.

Fiber preparation causes drops that feel mysterious because the technique seems correct but the spindle drops anyway. Compacted fiber - compressed during storage or poorly carded - doesn't draft smoothly. You pull and the fibers clump instead of sliding past each other gradually. This creates thick and thin spots. The spindle drops at the thin spots. Solution: better fiber preparation, not better technique.

Slippery fibers (silk, some plant fibers) require more twist than grabby fibers (wool, alpaca) to achieve the same strength. If you spin silk using the same twist frequency as wool, the spindle drops because silk needs substantially more twist before the fibers cohere into structurally sound yarn. Solution: spin the spindle more frequently, or use a lighter spindle so the strength requirement is less demanding.

Short staple fibers (under 2 inches) challenge suspended spinning because they need lots of twist before they can support any weight. Cotton, cashmere, angora - these work far better on supported spindles where weight stress doesn't exist during yarn formation. If you must use a suspended spindle with short fibers, go extremely light (under 25 grams) and add twist obsessively.

Join failures cause drops that happen right where you attached new fiber to existing yarn. Poor joins - just laying fiber against yarn and hoping twist holds it - fail under weight. Solution: overlap fiber generously during joins, add extra twist at the join point, or learn the spit-splice technique that felts the join into a stronger bond than either separate fiber.

Here's what makes spindle learning effective: each drop provides specific diagnostic information. Drop at a thin spot? Draft more consistently. Drop at a join? Improve join technique. Drop immediately after spinning starts? Add more twist. Drop during winding onto the shaft? You allowed twist to escape - keep yarn taut between spindle and fiber source.

Wheels hide these failure modes behind mechanical compensation. The wheel's take-up system can be adjusted to accommodate weak yarn, and beginning wheel spinners often reduce tension so dramatically that the wheel accepts yarn that can't support its own weight plus minimal load. This feels successful (yarn is winding onto the bobbin!) but doesn't teach what the yarn actually needs for structural integrity.

The spindle makes you deal with yarn reality. Either your yarn can support weight or it can't. Either your drafting is consistent or it isn't. Either your fiber preparation is adequate or it isn't. No mechanical adjustment can hide these truths. This brutal honesty accelerates learning for some people and frustrates others who'd rather focus on producing yardage than understanding fundamentals.

Both approaches work. Some people need to understand principles before they can execute technique - spindles serve them well. Other people need to see results before they can maintain motivation to practice - wheels serve them better. Neither is superior. They're different paths to the same skill set.

Why Experienced Spinners Keep Spindles Around Despite Owning Wheels

Owning a spinning wheel doesn't make spindles obsolete. They solve different problems, and experienced spinners typically maintain both tool sets for different situations.

Portability. A spindle fits in a coat pocket. You can spin while riding a bus, waiting in an airport, sitting in a park, walking slowly through a neighborhood. The spinning happens wherever you are without requiring a dedicated workspace, chair height, or floor space. For people who value spinning as a portable, take-anywhere activity, spindles remain primary tools despite wheel ownership.

Fiber sampling. You bought 4 ounces of expensive fiber at a festival and want to test how it spins before committing to wheel-spinning the whole stash. A spindle lets you spin 20-30 yards quickly to check how the fiber behaves, what twist it needs, whether you like the resulting yarn. Wheels require more setup time for such short sampling sessions.

Luxury fiber economics. You have 2 ounces of qiviut (musk ox down) worth approximately $8 per ounce. Spinning this on a supported spindle with long-draw technique maximizes yardage by incorporating air into the fiber structure. You might get 200-250 yards from those 2 ounces instead of the 150-180 yards a wheel would produce with its firmer take-up. That extra yardage matters when the raw material costs $16.

Silent spinning. Wheels make noise - treadling, drive bands, bearing friction. Spindles make essentially no noise beyond the soft thwick of flicking the whorl. For people living in small apartments, spinning late at night, or simply preferring quiet activities, spindles solve the noise problem completely.

Meditative practice. Some spinners value the slow, intentional rhythm of spindle spinning over the production efficiency of wheels. The hand movements, the visual focus on the forming yarn, the periodic winding-on breaks - these create a different psychological experience than wheel spinning's continuous motion. Neither is better. They're different activities that happen to both produce yarn.

Teaching. Many spinning instructors own wheels but teach beginners on spindles because isolating the drafting skill makes learning more manageable. The instructor can demonstrate drafting without simultaneously treadling, and students can focus on fiber behavior without mechanical distraction.

Special techniques. Park-and-draft spinning (a technique where you add twist, then stop the spindle and draft, then add more twist) works better on spindles than wheels. Spinning from the fold (a technique where you fold a length of fiber over your finger and spin from that folded arrangement) works beautifully on supported spindles. Certain yarn effects and textures emerge more easily through spindle techniques than wheel techniques.

Art yarn. Spinners creating highly textured, intentionally irregular yarn often prefer spindles because the slow pace allows precise control over where lumps, slubs, and thick sections occur. Wheels' faster pace and mechanical momentum can override intentional irregularity, making it harder to create deliberate texture placement.

Historical recreation. People involved in historical reenactment, living history demonstrations, or textile archaeology use period-appropriate tools. A 14th-century spinner used a spindle, not a wheel, so modern spinners recreating that context use spindles. The yarn characteristics differ enough between methods that historical accuracy requires historical tools.

The question isn't whether to choose spindles or wheels. It's understanding that they're different tools with overlapping but not identical capabilities. Most serious spinners eventually own both because different projects and contexts favor different tools. A production spinner making 20 ounces of sock yarn uses a wheel. That same spinner sampling luxury fiber or spinning while traveling uses a spindle.

The Brutal Simplicity Of A Weighted Stick

Drop spindles strip spinning down to fundamental physics: weight, rotation, and fiber friction. No drive bands, no bobbins, no tension adjustments. Just a stick, a whorl, and your hands. The simplicity is either liberating or limiting depending on what you want from the spinning process.

For learning, this simplicity clarifies. When something goes wrong - and it will - there are only three variables: your hands, the fiber, the spindle's weight and rotation. Troubleshooting becomes straightforward because there's nowhere for problems to hide behind mechanical complexity.

For production spinning, this simplicity becomes limitation. You can't spin 8 ounces of yarn in an evening on a spindle the way you can on a wheel. The process is slower, more manual, requires more starting and stopping. If yardage is the goal, wheels win decisively.

For portable, meditative, or specialized spinning, the simplicity returns to advantage. No setup time, no breakdown time, no mechanical maintenance, no floor space requirements. Pull the spindle from your pocket, attach fiber, spin. Done spinning? Wind the yarn off, put the spindle away. The entire tool system fits in a space smaller than a coffee mug.

This is a tool that humans developed before recorded history and never improved upon because it was already optimal for its purpose. The physics can't be streamlined further - you need weight for momentum, rotation for twist insertion, and fiber friction for structural binding. Everything else is decoration.

Spinning wheels automated the rotation part through treadles and drive systems. They didn't replace spindles - they solved a different problem (sustained twist insertion for production spinning). Spindles remain useful for situations where portability, simplicity, or specific technique requirements matter more than production speed.

If you want to understand how yarn actually works - how twist creates structure, how fiber preparation affects spinning, how yarn strength develops through the interaction of twist and fiber length - a spindle teaches these principles through immediate, unmediated feedback. The spindle drops when your yarn can't support it. That's not a flaw. That's information.

You can make yarn with a weighted stick. People have been doing this for at least 6,000 years. The stick still works.