demo of spinning a cotton ball with fingers or a pencil

I threw this together. It's unscripted, unrehearsed, unedited, and full of awkward pauses. It's claims to coherency are limited. It's a miracle I stayed in frame as much as I did. it's not even about making yarn to use as yarn. This was probably a bad idea.

Still.

What's it about? Getting spinning with almost nothing on hand. Even if the yarn isn't something you'd want to use to make something else, it will still allow you to learn how it's done. The fundamental mechanics of turning fiber into string persist through all the different tools and fibers. This isn't so much a "how to" as an "it's definitely possible".

In terms of specific materials, it's actually much more plausible to spin cotton balls this way than with a drop spindle because the developing strand never has to support the weight of the spindle. If one wants to use a spindle to spin cotton, use a supported spindle.