I have been knitting on and off since I was a kid. A while ago I picked up a Turkish drop spindle from Knitpicks to try my hand at spinning my own yarn. This week I completed my first batch. It was generally lumpy with thick and thin parts and lots of joins. I plied it myself by plying both ends from the center pull ball from the Turkish drop spindle to create a 2 ply handspun yarn. This process actually gave the yarn much more stability and consistency in terms of its thickness and I am actually pretty pleased with how it looks now.

So much so that I have started my 2nd yarn, using a bat of Purple People Eater (purple is my favorite color). My plan is to spin this yarn as thin as I can and try to create something in a sport or dk weight, for shawl knitting (lace weight would be too ambitious).

I have to say I never thought I'd become a spinner but I have to say it is both enjoyable and relaxing,and has a useful output. I can see myself easily creating far more handspun yarn than I'll ever have time to knit, so knitter friends you may be getting some handspun sometime soon!