Antler Whorls from Crossman Crafts

Here is my new drop spindle from Crossman Crafts in the U.K.  The whorl is small, an inch and a half, and is made from naturally-shed deer antler from Scotland.  The wood is English boxwood.

Spindles with antler are uncommon and I feel fortunate to have one.  To the left you can see another antler whorl, smaller and in conical shape.  I've worn that one as a pendant.  The exposure in the photo doesn't do justice to antler's slightly mottled surface.

The large and small whorls were stock items but the shaft and hook were made to order.  Initially I gave completely wrong specs to Peter Crossman due to a math error I made and he graciously reworked the piece when I realized.

As always, I note on the blog whenever I receive an unsolicited gift from a business so that you can know what could be influencing what I write.  Some beads and some pieces of taffy turned up in the parcel.

Hopefully it goes without saying that any complimentary parcel enclosure from anywhere is done solely at the discretion of the business owner and should not be expected as ordinary or anyone's due?

The beads are half-scale replicas of beads from the Tudor shipwreck the Mary Rose, which is in Portsmouth, England, same as Crossman Crafts.