A Pet Peeve: Spinners who don't spin

The spinning wheel enjoys a prominent place in Western Folklore. Two of our favorite fairy tales are spinning related - Rumpelstiltskin and Sleeping Beauty. There are lots of others, too, if you care to delve into the collected works of Andrew Lang. My favorite is The Nettle Spinner. It is possible to spin nettles - it turns out kind of like flax. I would love to try it sometime.

Spinning with a spinning wheel used to be HUGE. At one time, everyone knew how to spin. It was one of "those things" that all women did, right up there with eating, breathing, and having babies. Almanzo Wilder's mom spun and wove the cloth for all the family's clothing. One of my ancestors, Cynthia Stewart Hill, spun flax and wove it into linen suits to support her family while her husband was away. In the days of the American Revolution, spinning was a form of patriotism because the British didn't want the colonists to be self-sufficient. And before the spinning wheel was invented around 1200 A.D., women spun on drop spindles. Augustus Caesar wore only cloth spun and woven by the women of his household. Women have been spinning for thousands and thousands of years, practically since the dawn of time.

It's only been about 150-ish years since the industrial revolution took textile manufacture out of the cottages and into the factories, and today those who spin are a very small minority. (Thankfully, it's a minority that has experienced something of a Renaissance since the 1970s, so people like me can get their very own wheels instead of trying to steal one from a museum. ) 150 years is not a very long time at all, when you consider how long spinning as been part of the human condition.

But 150 years is plenty of time for the general human population to completely forget how a spinning wheel is supposed to work. There are hundreds of film and television portrayals of Rumpelstiltskin and Sleeping Beauty, and I have never seen one that gets it right. It drives me absolutely bonkers! Disney's version has Sleeping Beauty prick her finger on the distaff, not the spindle.

This Hello Kitty version has the straw going around the drive band. Check out 5:36.

The most recent episode of Once Upon A Time features a walking wheel, except the drive band is inaccurately placed. (10:30) Also, Rumpelstiltskin has the straw already on the spindle and the spun gold falls in tangles onto a plate on the floor. Cringe Cringe Cringe!

And a rendition of Sleeping Beauty (starring Bernadette Peters and Christopher Reeve). The spinning wheel is at 0:40. It's a walking wheel and the old lady kind of gets it (at least it is constructed correctly) but the lady is just winding and unwinding the same bit of yarn onto the spindle; she isn't actually spinning. I do like the Evil Fairy's line, "What is the world coming to? Spinning is spinning, or at least it was." And at least Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger on the actual spindle.

I have already treated the world to a rant on the horrible book "Spindle's End," where spinning wheels and spindles featured prominently, but the author did not take the trouble to figure out how they work.  Well, ok, maybe the book wasn't horrible, but the inaccurate information ruined it for me.


Now, in an episode of the TV show LOST, Jacob does some spinning and he actually does it right. Sort of. I think the "roving" he's using has already been sort of spun. He has an Ashford Traditional (known as an Ashford Traddy) wheel, the same kind my mom has.



Here is another video that shows how it actually works, courtesy of Sesame Street. The clip is at the end of the video, around 51:10. The lady also uses an Ashford Traddy. Except normal people wash the fleece before they card it, and ply and set the yarn before knitting it into sweaters. Still, it's a much better representation of spinning than poor little Hello Kitty.



Here is a picture of me spinning at my wheel, taken about a year ago. That's the Squeaker in my lap. 

Here's how it works: you use your feet to work the treadles, which makes the big wheel go around and around. There is a drive band that causes the flyer (the thingy on top) to also go around and around. I have a bit of fiber in my hand and slowly tease out bits to make it into yarn; the rotation of the flyer simultaneously puts spin into the fiber and winds it onto the bobbin.

There. Now you are an educated populace.