Spindle (textile)

A spindle is a shaft used to twist fibers into yarn, by hand or with a spinning machine. A hand spindle may use a weighted whorl to maintain rotation.

Drop spindle: A hand-operated spindle suspended from yarn as it twists fibers and winds the resulting yarn. Its suspended rotation is the most familiar way a spindle twists fibers without a wheel.
Spinning (textiles): The process of drawing out and twisting fibers to produce yarn. The spindle is a tool within the broader practice of spinning.
Hand spinning: The production of yarn by manually drawing and twisting fibers, using tools such as a spindle or spinning wheel. A spindle is a compact tool for making yarn by hand.
Textile fiber: A natural or manufactured strand-like material suitable for making yarn or fabric. Spindles twist textile fibers into continuous strands.
Distaff: A tool that holds loose fibers in readiness for hand spinning. It keeps the unspun fiber orderly while the spindle draws and twists it.
Spindle whorl: A disk or other weight fitted to a spindle to help it rotate steadily. Archaeological whorls are durable finds that reveal the use and design of spinning equipment.
Spinning jenny: An eighteenth-century machine that allowed one worker to spin multiple yarns at once. It replaced the single-yarn pace of hand spindle work with several simultaneously spun threads.
Wool: The textile fiber obtained chiefly from the coats of sheep and other animals. Its crimped fibers can be drafted and twisted into yarn on a spindle.
Drafting (textile production): The controlled drawing out of fibers into a thinner, continuous strand before or during twisting. Drafting sets the strand's thickness as spindle rotation adds twist.
Neolithic Revolution: The transition in many regions from mobile foraging to settled farming, beginning around 10,000 BCE. Spindle use belongs to the broader history of fiber crafts that expanded with settled communities.

Linked from 5 pages

Spinning frameRelated: Each spindle adds twist to a strand drawn through the frame.