Keep those Wheels Spinning

Now I know summer is not quite over yet but it will start to get cooler before we know it and that is a time when we can get cozy with wool blankets, socks, or sweaters. As I’ve written before, we take for granted many of the luxuries that we have today that they may not have had so long ago. Today we can simply go to the store and buy a nice warm wool blanket but back when people first came to the area they would have had to have made their own blankets, socks, etc. The local General Stores provided some pre-made fabrics but many times wool yarn was hand-made.

General steps for processing wool into yarn include sheering the sheep, cleaning the wool, carding the wool, and spinning the wool into yarn. Hand-spinning wool has been around for centuries along with various types of tools for the task. An early tool for spinning wool was the drop spindle. The drop spindle is a simple tool made of material readily available to the locals, according to the website, “The Joy of Handspinning” (www.joyofhandspinning.com), but commonly it is a wooden shaft with a wooden disc as the whorl. There are different types of spindles to use depending on the type of yarn you want. According to “The Joy of Handspinning” common spindles include the low whorl spindle, the high whorl spindle, and the Navajo spindle. Another tool used for spinning wool is the spinning wheel. The spinning wheel has been in different cultures, China, Europe, etc, since around AD 1300. Just like the spindle, the spinning wheel comes in many different forms: Great Wheel, Saxony Wheel, Castle Wheel, Norwegian Wheel, and modern wheels like the Charkha Wheel. The styles of wheel signify different things like where the wheel was first used as well as its complexity of use. “The Joy of Handspinning” suggests that beginners use the Great Wheel. While these styles differ in appearance, spinning wheels have common parts such as the fly wheel, the drive band, the flyer, the bobbin, the treadle, the footman, and many others. Rather than using gravity and force to spin the wool like the drop spindle, the spinning wheel uses a foot pedal to spin the wheel taking the place of gravity.

There’s not enough space here to go into complete detail about how the spinning wheel works so for more information take a look at “The Joy of Handspinning” online or visit the Western Heritage Museum Complex and Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame during the Staked Plains Round-Up September 16 and 17 for a demonstration. Just because hand-spinning has been around for centuries doesn’t mean it is a dying art. On the contrary, hand-spinning is alive and well today; in fact, “The Spinning Wheel Sleuth” is a periodical dedicated to spinning wheels and related tools. To see a spinning wheel close up anytime, come visit the Museum where we have a wonderful example on display in the South Gallery from the Virgil and Thelma Linam Collection.