All of this packing and organizing and giving stuff away for the move can, understandably, burn me out. So, when the chance presented itself to sit down and watch a couple Austen movies (I was burning them onto DVD for later... Persuasion and Emma—the Kate Beckinsale version) I really wanted to do some spinning. Sure I had my clapotis sitting there almost done with its first skein, but I hadn't done any spinning in ages (I still haven't posted pictures of my last) and that's what was calling to me.

But... well in all of this mess, I've momentarily misplaced my drop spindle. And even if I had found it, it still had the yarn of my previous attempt on it. And... well I've been curious about lighter-weight spindles, and still being in the experimentation phase (really, I think I always will be, if you know what I mean!) I was wondering about CD drop spindles. But I didn't want to have to go to the store and buy a wooden dowel or drill anything, quite honestly. Not because I don't know how to drill—my father refurbished houses when I grew up so I darn well do. I just wasn't in the mood to get so complicated.

And so, my new variation of the drop spindle was born!

Take all of this:

Go ahead and take the cap off of the pen and pull the ink tip out of the spout. Not the whole head of the pen, mind, just the little part directly connected to the ink shaft. Then take a pair of pliers (or maybe you can do this by hand, I couldn't.) and bend the inside of the lanyard hook out and straight out, bend it only at the bottom of the hook, don't bend the straight parts, or obviously the hook itself. This should give you something just awkward enough to be shoved into the pen shaft without wanting to budge once it's in there, like so:


Then, position the bottom rubber stopper (mine, I'll admit, came from a little set of eraser pencil grips) wherever you want, drop the CD down, and put the other one on top. And voila:


Here's a pic of my spindle along with the roving I was working with and the yarn I made from it. Quite fine stuff, actually! Not very good yarn, because I'm still new to this and I know I have a ton of weak spots in it, but the spindle worked well enough. It wasn't perfect, the grips are a little looser than I'd like, but that's mainly because I wanted it to be take-apart-able later. If you don't, of course you could glue the grips and CD into place. Either way, this isn't very fancy, but it's a very simple little spindle, popped together in a matter of minutes, made from stuff you probably have around the house anyhow. Enjoy!