I’ve been using my Turkish spindles a lot lately, more so than the other types in my collection. My IST spindles are in the following woods: London Plane, Bog Oak and Spalted Beech. But why these choices?

I’m a Londoner. London Plane trees are everywhere in the capital – lining the streets and spreading out in the parks, nudging branches with red and white horse chestnuts. As a schoolchild, I would wander home in the autumn and early winter, scrunching through the fallen leaves on the pavement. I can still remember the smell and was reminded of that when I was in Dublin in 2018, where their autumn had come a little earlier than in Sussex. Do children (and adults) still play with itchy balls? Hopefully everyone’s learnt how itchy these things can be and are kinder to their friends. If you don’t know what an itchy ball is, it’s the dried fruit of the plane. When it’s broken open, the hairy seeds can cause quite an irritation when plopped down someone’s back. Not nice and potentially dangerous.

I had a moment of nostalgia when I was walking along North Terrace, Adelaide, and a plane leaf dropped from it’s twig, and drifted down to the pavement in the most poetic fashion, gliding here and there, twisting, turning, floating upwards and then downwards again. Autumn, and an image of Winnie the Pooh coming to mind.

So that leads on to oak, the national tree of England. The sight of one of these trees spreading its boughs un-nudged in a field is symbolic of the English countryside. The smell of rotting oak leaves also reminds me of my childhood, walking home from school through the “squirrel park” where the “parky” used to spend all his time clearing up the fallen leaves with a besom, then carting them off in his wheelbarrow to a humongous compost pile. The smell was strangely sweet/herbal and one that I’m never likely to forget. The spindles are actually made from bog oak – 4,000 year-old oak from the fens. As a history buff, this adds heaps to their appeal.

And beech… Have you ever walked past or through a beech grove in the cooler months, where the unmistakable copper glow of the carpet of fallen leaves contrasts perfectly with the smooth, silver-grey trunks? In summer, the leaves provide a cooling shade from the sun, with their lighter undersides adding an individually mysterious shimmer. There I go a-waxing lyrical… I remember being taught how to eat beech nuts by my Mum, who no doubt hadn’t savoured them since her childhood. We were at Farthing Downs, south of Croydon, where we so often used to take our dog Penny for a walk. The beech trees were at the top of the road, where it became a footpath, and stood proudly at the entrance to some fascinating woodland.

OK, so that’s how I choose my spindles! What makes IST Turkish spindles unique is the shape of the arms and also the brass weights, giving them more spin. The overall design is unique to craftsman Ian Tait. Note that my blog is non-commercial, and that any recommendation of a product or supplier is simply that.