Spinning wool

Recently a friend of mine agreed to teach us how to spin wool. We took a family field trip to the Harris home, where she gave us a tour of her massive wool collection, ranging from sources such as llama, alpaca, sheep, and even baby camel fur. She had made wooden drop spindles for us to practice on and take home. Spinning with a drop spindle is tricky, but very interesting.  Deana sent us home with a bag of wool in a couple different colors so we could practice the new skills.

Sarah loved her spindle very much and I caught her up late at night, spinning wool in bed. As soon as her alarm went off the next morning, Sarah immediately picked up the spindle and worked some more. Daniel was also surprisingly diligent in trying to spin wool, even though he didn't stand a chance at actually making useful yarn with his pudgy tiny fingers and uncoordinated muscles.

After teaching us how to spin by hand, Deana showed us her new spinning wheel. It was so delightful to learn how it worked; I've always wondered how to spin on a wheel. She very patiently taught Sarah and Matthew how to do it, and gave them each a turn on it. Matthew loved working the foot treadle. I was eager for my turn, and was abashed to discover it was much harder than I thought. I couldn't even keep the wheel going steadily in one direction; it kept turning back on itself as I focused on working with the wool in my fingers.  It was still very interesting, and we had a good laugh over my early attempts to spin.

Next she showed me her wooden table loom. It was fascinating to work on. I can't imagine being a housewife hundreds of years ago and making the fabric from raw wool. It boggles my mind to think about how many hours it takes to spin the wool and weave the fabric. It would be so hard to actually cut the roll of fabric into a pattern for clothing. Even then the work is only half done. Hand-stitching the clothing would take days to make a complete outfit. I've hand-stitched a lot of things for our reenactment costumes, and I can't imagine doing it for every article of clothing. I'm so immensley thankful for our ancestors and the toil they undertook as a matter of course.