What do drop spindles and spinning wheels do?

Handspinners can use a drop spindle or a spinning wheel to create yarn from unspun fibers such as wool fleece, hair from goats/dogs/llamas/alpacas, cotton bolls, or flax stems. Though these tools look very different from each other, they both perform the same function: they twist fibers around each other into a yarn. The yarn might be very fine, like sewing thread, or it might be very thick. It can be a single-ply yarn, called singles, or it can incorporate multiple plies. But no matter what kind of yarn a handspinner makes, twist holds the individual fibers together.

Once humans discovered how to twist animal and plant fibers into yarn, they began making cloth from that yarn. It's much easier to weave, knit, or crochet with yarn as opposed to a handful of untwisted fibers. And the resulting fabric will hold up better under daily use.

Drop Spindles

People started using drop spindles in prehistoric times, because a spindle is really easy to make and use. A long thin shaft goes through a round weighted part, called the whorl. The spinner feeds unspun fiber from one hand and spins the spindle with the other.

To begin making yarn, the spinner drafts some fiber—that is, pulls out a little fiber from the fiber supply. When the spinner sets the spindle rotating, twist builds up in the drafted fiber. When the yarn has enough twist, the spinner wraps it around the shaft and drafts again. When the spinner has made enough yarn and wrapped it into a cone-shaped mass around the shaft (in what's called a cop), the yarn can be removed.

Spinners all over the world still make yarn with spindles. They use Navajo spindles, Turkish spindles, takhli spindles, or supported spindles as well as drop spindles. While these spindles have different designs, they all add twist to unspun fiber.

Spinning Wheels

A spinning wheel does the same thing as a spindle: it twists fiber into yarn, then provides a place to store the yarn. A wheel can generally make yarn faster than a spindle, however, because the spinner's feet get involved. In addition, the bobbins used on a wheel can store a lot of yarn.

As the spinner treadles, the treadles set the drive wheel in motion. The drive wheel sets the flyer in motion. The flyer provides the rotation that builds up twist, and the bobbin holds spun yarn.

Think of the flyer and bobbin as a spindle held parallel to the floor. When the spinner has filled the bobbin with yarn, the bobbin can be removed.

Today, spinners can use modern wheels with flyers and bobbins, or their ancestors and cousins, the great wheel (walking wheel), the quill wheel, and the charkha wheel. These older wheels use a sharp point instead of a flyer to build up twist in the fiber—they're even more similar to a spindle. Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on the sharp point of a quill-style wheel. Spinners can also use electric spinners (e-spinners), where a motor turns the flyer to add twist.

Plying

Spinners create plied yarns from singles, using a spindle or a spinning wheel. The spinner fills two or more bobbins or makes more than one cop on a spindle. Bobbins can go on a lazy kate, which sits on the floor or attaches to the wheel. Then the spinner rotates the spindle or the flyer counterclockwise, for S twist, until the plies wrap around each other. Plied yarns are generally thicker and stronger than singles yarns. The two colors of singles in this barber pole yarn make it easy to see the plies.

Spindle vs. Wheel

If you can spin yarn on a drop spindle or a wheel, how do you choose the equipment you'll use? It depends on the type of yarn you want to make, as well as your budget and the space you have for equipment.

Spindles are much less expensive, much more portable, and much smaller in size, but they generally make yarn more slowly. You can spin yarn of any diameter, though it may be a challenge to spin highly textured or art yarns.
Spinning wheels are available in a variety of materials, at a variety of price points and sizes. You can spin yarn of any diameter, and you can probably make it faster on a wheel. Wheels with flyers and bobbins excel at textured yarns and art yarns, especially if the wheel uses Scotch or Irish (bobbin lead) tension.

Resources

Beginning Spinning on a Wheel, online course taught by Stephanie Flynn.

Beyond Your Default Spin-along, free online course taught by Stephanie Flynn.

A Beginner's Guide to Spinning on a Drop Spindle

Knisely, Tom. Spinning 101.

Smith, Beth. How to Spin.