One of the painkillers I’m taking for my sore shoulder contains coedine, which makes me mildly spacy. Since I’m not the most graceful person at the best of times, I’ve decided to hold off on any sharp-knives areas of bookbinding unless I go off the medication for an evening.

Unfortunately, that leaves me with idle hands, which drives me nuts.

I’ve been flirting with the idea of taking up spinning for some time. Drop spindles aren’t that expesive, and I’d love to get good enough at it to spin my own headbanding silks. My friend EJ sent me some handspun silk that I’ve enjoyed working with.

But I like instant gratification, and ordering a drop spindle from ebay or the local spinning place has a time delay that has kept me off of it. Of course, there were those instructions on how to make one from a dowel and a CD…

So I did. My bad.

An old hair stick + a mini driver CD + a hook from some beading wire + leather to wrap the hair stick so the CD fits on it = 15g spindle. It’s perfect for spinning thick thread/thin yarn from cotton balls.

(Of course, it’s all wrong. One shouldn’t start with a lightweight spindle, because they’re too difficult to control. One shouldn’t start with cotton, which doesn’t draft and spin as well as wool. But then, one shouldn’t start binding with leather either…)

I don’t think this is going to be the obsession binding is, but it’s an interesting piece of skill acquisition. I may even order some proper fibres today. If that’s not too orthodox.