"Prick her finger on a spinning wheel"

 Although I have been spinning on a spinning wheel for a year it is an art that goes back between 800 to 1,000 years. Thought to have started in India and the wheels have evolved to what we know today. The earliest versions were great wheels or walking. They are distinctive in their form and the spinner, man or woman, would turn the wheel, conecting to the spindle by a a driveband, by hand causing the fibers to twist then wrap it around the spindle.

Eventually the great wheel would evolve. Around the 15 hundreds in Germany a treadle would be added that would allow the spinners foot to control the speed of the wheel. A driveband then connects to a fly wheel which not only twist the fiber but also winds the spun yarn onto a bobbin resting inside the flywheel.

Today treadle wheels are the most common. Parlor wheels, which is the kind I own, spin most fibers from wool to acrylic. Linen fiber however needs a special tool called a distaff. Early distaffs had a needle of sorts on the top.... leading to the fairy tale of bewitching spindles and sleeping girls. The flax plant once processed would be wrapped around the distaff and then spun.

An old art but a beautiful one.