Julie asks some interesting questions about a field my heart loves, though my mind can't get enough facts :)
<<1. "was wool spun on the flax wheel?" I have seen "flax" wheels in museums with old wool on them....so we can guess wool was spun on the smaller wheels?>> I personally prefer the terms Great Wheel and Flyer Wheel, as they are more descriptive of the wheels, and don't seem limit choices as to fiber spun on them. True worsted spun wool can't be done on a great wheel without major difficulty, so it was certainly primarily done on flyer wheels. So yes, people can/did spin wool on 'flax' wheels. <<2. "did spinners ply flax and wool or did they use singles mostly?" I use the great wheel a bit and find the concept of plying from cops tricky. The answer probably will be found by examining colonial textiles - any of you textile people know about this one?>> Wool yarn was certainly sometimes 'doubled' or plied for knitting--reference Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's A Midwife's Tale. Although there's no specific reference that I can recall to singles yarn in that book, singles were widely used for weaving--reference Keep Me Warm One Night, Burnham and Burnham. Plied yarns could and probably were occasionally used for weaving, perhaps special uses like rug warp in particular, but I don't think it was really common, as it takes tremendously longer to make plied yarn for a woven project than to make singles. I personally think most wool singles spun on the great wheel was intended for weaving, as it was woolen spun and therefore suited to fulled cloth textiles--durable and warm, if not elegant like worsted cloth. Although singles spun on the wool wheel could also be plied for knitting (place your cops on knitting needles stuck through a shoebox, and it will be very easy to ply on the great wheel), they wouldn't have been as durable as worsted spun plied yarns. >From the reading I've done, most flax was spun for weaving, and every sample I've just checked in Keep Me Warm One Night uses singles linen yarns. Keeping in mind the textiles in this book are post-Colonial, they are still pre-Industrial in that people were making them at home for their own use (or providing handspun yarns to local professional weavers for home textile use), so I think they are very similar in yarn/fiber/weave structure even though the fashions are very different. Carded tow linen could be spun on a great wheel--and seems like I remember reading references to that, but I'm not sure. It makes sense. Carded tow has fibers that stick out--it's the antithesis of the smooth, wet-spun line flax linen yarns we usually think of. I know from experience hairy yarns can get caught on the hooks of the standard flyer, stopping spinning dead, so spinning tow, which is also short and needs lots of twist to hold together for weaving, would make sense to spin on a great wheel, which is much faster than any flyer wheel I've seen. <<3. "Did every household have a great wheel as well as a flax wheel?" Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Homespun book indicates the answer was mostly "no".>> A Midwife's Tale and Ulrich's Goodwives suggests that there was sometimes a degree of specialization in Colonial households. Martha Ballard specialized in midwifery and herbal medicine, while her daughters/nieces specialized in simple textile production in her home (while, on the male side, her husband and sons specialized in turning logs into lumber, and her husband also did surveying for landowners). Other households might specialize in tailoring/dressmaking, or brewing, or other jobs that required a degree of investment in equipment and/or skill. Then the neighbors could barter amongst themselves for each commodity needed, even if they didn't personally produce it. However, since spinning was an acceptable female expression of support for the Revolution, compatible with many other aspects of female housework, and an expression of female virtue, I would be surprised to hear there wasn't a substantial majority of homes with wheels by the mid 18th C if not sooner, even if they weren't being used. Did EVERY household have a wheel of some sort? Probably not. Did most? I think probably so. <<4. "Did everyone spin their own fiber ?">> England actively discouraged textile production in the colonies, wanting to keep the colonies as an outlet for their goods, which is a good part of why it became a popular expression of disatisfaction with the political situation. Gradually, textile production snuck (sneaked? :) over the ocean, though, because colonists didn't have the cash to buy textiles and/or textiles weren't imported fast enough for the demand. I expect cloth breeches and gowns wore out much faster when clearing fields and planting door yards in the New World than doing the work the owners would have done in Europe. But as in the answer above, referring to a degree of specialization, probably some people didn't spin at all, but traded their work in other areas for yarn with one neighbor, and for weaving using that yarn with another neighbor. <<5. "Was knitting a common skill in Colonial period?" I have seen patterns for hats and gloves but not for larger items like sweaters.>> I don't think sweaters were developed as we know them today until the second half of the 19th C-reference the book about American Handknitting, which I've loaned out so can't give the real name and author. Larger garments were certainly made prior to that time--tunics, undergarments, petticoats, etc, and with very fine needles and yarns compared to most handknitting today. It's hard to find a book on the history of handknitting without also seeing a picture of the handknit shirt worn by Charles I of England at his execution. Those kinds of items were primarily made by guild knitters in England. The guild system of textile production pretty much fell apart when Europeans came to North America, however, and reverted to being primarily female at-home production. Women with households to manage didn't have time for large-scale projects. They HAD to make mittens and stockings and caps to keep their family members from freezing in the harsh winters. Fancy knitting was probably sometimes practiced--by those women whose husbands' income and status required that they direct servants, leaving them to do decorative work. From the reading I've done, many more privileged women practiced embroidery of various types than knitting, which was considered somewhat low status. But that impression may be due to the fact that embroidery that's framed and hung on a wall is more likely to survive the centuries and be admired today than delicate lace knitting that was actually used, if only occasionally. <<But how much homespun we really wore, I am not too sure...any thoughts?>> I think it probably depended on the financial status of the family, and the political leanings of the head of household. By the time the Pilgrims arrived in North America (actually, even centuries earlier), European textile production was primarily done by men in guilds, with some piecework (including spinning) put out to women in some areas. Textiles were also imported from other areas--silks from the Orient (in addition to European silks), cottons from India being of growing importance. Textiles in America, 1650-1870, Florence Montgomery, lists hundreds of commercial cloth available to those with means to buy it. In addition, people then didn't have today's throwaway attitude towards textiles. Even among the richest, an article of clothing no longer fashionable, or beyond repair for normal wear, would be passed to one's servants or to the poor, not thrown away. So, even after blockades and embargoes, colonists would still be wearing clothing made years earlier of imported cloth. I'm sure poorer people had to turn to spinning/weaving sooner than richer, because they had fewer articles of clothing to start with. I remember reading of a family who spun and wove the cloth for their son/brother going off to fight in the Revolution--the uniform was started and finished in 24 hours according to the story. I don't remember just where I read it--it might have been in that history of American handknitting book. That some people made, and wore, completely handspun clothing, with pride in their (or their womenfolk's) industry, skill, and patriotism is certain--most books about the Revolution include references to handspun clothing. Whether it was commonplace to wear such clothing at any time is perhaps unlikely. Even Martha Ballard bought cloth for a new gown, though she and her daughters spun yarn, and her daughters wove in her home. I haven't found too many books that offer factual information about the textiles people made during colonial times in North America. Ulrich's books are the best, and most information about textiles in those books is rather incidental--you pick up bits and pieces while reading a book that isn't actually about textile production. Just don't fall into the trap of saying that a spinner at a great wheel walked 20 miles a day :) Suppose she spins one yard per draw, and draws out/winds on 1 yard every 4 seconds. That would be spinning about 900 yards per hour--a very generous guestimate for a highly skilled spinner working from well-prepared rolags, with no interuptions at all. If she spins 16 hours a day (no interruptions, even for food! :), that's 14,400 yards, which in turn is a little over 8 miles of walking, supposedly. But spinning on a great wheel doesn't really involve walking at all. I keep one foot pretty much planted by the wheel's upright, while my other foot steps forward for the beginning of the draw, then backward one step for the end of the draw, and back again for winding on. I was going to philosophize a bit about the meaning of pre-Industrial ways of life to our post-Industrial culture and world today, but I guess it probably is not really suitable here :) Holly To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
