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Tahkli with felted plying balls
Aug. 14th, 2008 07:27 pmAs promised a couple of days ago, here's a photo of the felt balls in use.
Clockwise from upper left: a felted ball of wool used as a core to wrap cobweb yarn onto before plying; another such ball with a spindle full of fine cashmere thread wound onto it; aluminum support block to stand the point of the spindle on while working; brass tahkli itself, a supported spindle from India; and a pinch of Mongolian cashmere fiber. Cashmere is the extremely soft and downy undercoat of certain goats who live in cold, high altitude climates. Examine photo at full size to see the delicate thread that joins the spindle to the wad of loose fiber. (Click on photo, then on "All sizes" at upper margin of image.) For scale, the brass whorl of the spindle is slightly larger than a US or Canadian five cent piece.
This is an amazing but painstaking way to spin. The famous cashmere and silk shawls of central Asia are knitted on size 0 needles from yarn made by plying a single strand of cashmere spun in this way with a thinner strand of silk (usually from commercial sources.) The famous knitters of Orenburg, Russia used wooden spindles but they operated in the same manner, supported by standing the point of the spindle in a bowl. This allows very thin, light thread to be spun because the yarn does not have to support the weight of the hanging spindle.
Clockwise from upper left: a felted ball of wool used as a core to wrap cobweb yarn onto before plying; another such ball with a spindle full of fine cashmere thread wound onto it; aluminum support block to stand the point of the spindle on while working; brass tahkli itself, a supported spindle from India; and a pinch of Mongolian cashmere fiber. Cashmere is the extremely soft and downy undercoat of certain goats who live in cold, high altitude climates. Examine photo at full size to see the delicate thread that joins the spindle to the wad of loose fiber. (Click on photo, then on "All sizes" at upper margin of image.) For scale, the brass whorl of the spindle is slightly larger than a US or Canadian five cent piece.
This is an amazing but painstaking way to spin. The famous cashmere and silk shawls of central Asia are knitted on size 0 needles from yarn made by plying a single strand of cashmere spun in this way with a thinner strand of silk (usually from commercial sources.) The famous knitters of Orenburg, Russia used wooden spindles but they operated in the same manner, supported by standing the point of the spindle in a bowl. This allows very thin, light thread to be spun because the yarn does not have to support the weight of the hanging spindle.
