Description

Sadly, in the pandemic, we lost a lot of our local woodworkers, and the ones who survived have largely shifted to other kinds of work because there hasn’t been a lot of money to made from producing spindles. But after months of begging, pleading, and promising to pay much higher prices than the going rates used to be, we’ve managed to get our hands on a very limited selection, which we’re sending off to our USA partner to ship out starting in the second half of November 2021.

If you want them, we encourage you to act fast, because we truly don’t know when, or if, we’ll be able to get more, or what it will cost to get our hands on them and get them to other countries. We have hopes that our efforts will succeed on that front, but no timeframe for when that will be, so for now, what you see is what we’ve got. The largest 2 sizes are Canti, for plying, and the smaller two sizes are Pushka, for spinning. The tiny size? It’s intended as a toy, but the truth is we love them for pocket spindles and as ornaments.

Whorls are turned by hand from local Peruvian balsa wood and shafts are hand whittled woods, mostly eucalyptus. These are the actual spindles conventionally used by traditional Peruvian spinners and weavers in the Cusco area since time immemorial — exactly what is used to spin and ply the yarns and in the textiles you see in the background in these listing photos.

• Large Canti 35 g with a shaft 40 cm (16 in) and a whorl 8 cm (3 in)
• Medium Canti 30 g with a shaft 38 cm (15 in) and a whorl 6.5 cm (2.5 in)
• Medium Pushka 22 g with a shaft 35 cm (14 in) and a whorl 5 cm (2 in)
• Regular Pushka 15 g with a shaft 30 cm (12 in) and a whorl 2.5 cm (1.5 in)
• Micro Pushka 4 g with a shaft 10 cm (4 in) and a whorl 2.5 cm (1 in)