I've heard that it's difficult to learn with a drop spindle, but I have hopes. Unlike most people, I've actually seen a drop spindle being used. And, there's no way I can shell out several hundred dollars for a spinning wheel that will not fit in my house.
And, if I produce a lot of short lengths of shitty yard, there's always this craft:
Nalbinding is a sort of proto-knitting, practiced by the Vikings and other people. It primarily survives in rugmaking.
It involves working with short lengths of yarn. There's a lot of trial and error with spinning and the yarn you make first isn't that great, so a craft that seems designed to use up bits and pieces of irregular yarn is perfect.
In fact, it probably was designed exactly for that.
There's a significant learning curve to many crafts that used to be mandatory. In most cultures where knitting was essential, girls learned how to knit around the age of five.
I'm sure people then didn't just toss out badly spun yarn and they probably didn't have time to always reknit badly knitted items, they just made do.
So, off I go. Spinning on the level of a five-year old. I'm sure it would only take me a century or two to outfit the crew of a longship.
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