I was scheduled to teach a drop spindle class at Kingdom A&S, but no-one signed up for it, because it was originally scheduled in conflict with the Performing Arts competition, and frankly, I think most people are content to buy yarn and thread.  Fine.

I set up my Fiber’s Not Just For Eating stuff anyway, to contribute to the general ambience of the class porch, and sat in on a storytelling class while I worked on my flax spinning, which I’ve been meaning to do.  Here’s the results of an hour spinning.

I tried walking around a bit at the beginning of the class, because peasants do everything while spinning, so as to get every minute in, and that was fairly successful on the spinning side, but not so successful on the listening to stories side.  Also, my water was usually too far away.

You need water when you spin flax.  I dip my lesser fingers in my cup, spin the spindle, and then draw and smooth.  The water makes the fibers stick to each other, so the thread breaks less often, and is finer.  Also the thread is smoother.  And damp fingers get more leverage on the spindle, so it spins faster and longer.  All good – except not portable.  The Peasant Solution(tm) is saliva – but I’ve read not to do that, because you end up transferring bitty sharp flax fibers to your mouth and causing infections.  Infections are something that don’t belong in Greet’s Middle Ages.  So perhaps this will be the ultimate reason to wear a mug frog on my belt – for a sponge cup.

I’m very pleased with my thread – that above is fine enough to sew with, I think, though I hope it gets finer with practice.  I should try it out.  The thread hangs together very well, the Z-twist is set, and is very strong.  And of course I should spin a few hundred yards and try it out on the loom, otherwise I’ll never move onto the cambric shirt of Scarborough Fair.