A weaver drafts wool fiber in her hands as she feeds the wheel spinning the fiber into yarn.
Carolyn Bennett inspects the yarn she has spun on her spinning wheel.
Lizette Hopkins and Deborah Hughes spin wool fiber into yarn using spinning wheels.
Spinners glossary: Give it a whorl
Bobbin: Where yarn is stored on the spinning wheel; it rotates on the spindle. Bump: A large block of raw wool or fiber, yet to be spun. Carding: A process of aligning strands of unspun fiber so it can be spun. Driveband: The strap or cord that connects the fly wheel and the flyer whorl on the spinning wheel. Drop spinner: The oldest device used to twist fiber into yarn; consists basically of a small wheel or disc and a rod. Fly wheel: The big wheel that goes round and round on a spinning wheel. Flyer and flyer whorl: The flyer is a U-shaped piece of wood with hooks lined up on one or both arms. The hooks distribute the yarn evenly on the bobbin. The whorl is a pulley attached to the flyer and operated by the drive band. Great or walking wheel: A gigantic spinning wheel that requires the spinner to stand and walk from one side to another. Lazy Kate: A device used to ply together yarns from multiple bobbins on a spinning wheel. Modern: Any new spinning-wheel design — such as a compact wheel made of PVC pipe — that doesn’t fit into traditional categories. Norwegian wheel: The wheel layout sits atop a platform. Orifice: Opening at the end of the spindle where the yarn goes through to connect to the flyer on the spinning wheel. Ply: A thread or strand of twisted fiber; three-ply means three strands were twisted together. Skein: A coil of yarn, taken off the bobbin. Spindle: A rod or pin, usually tapered at one end and weighted at the other. It puts the twist into the fiber.
Crowded into a circle in a church classroom, the women chatted as they pedaled, their wheels going round and round.
The room buzzed with a dozen conversations, all punctuated with laughter. Swapping yarns, the giddy storytellers kept up a steady pace, their wheels turning faster, fueled by a contagious energy.
Spinning tales goes hand in hand with the spinning wheel, a fabled and much-loved tool for turning fiber into thread or yarn.
“It’s worth the drive to get together,” said Lorna Ingram of Penryn, Calif. “It’s really encouraging, sharing this friendship while sharing our skills. I’m inspired by the group.”
“I find it very relaxing,” said Mary Mort of Sacramento. “I can sit here and spin — all your cares go away.”
Someday that yarn, the product of the ancient craft they’re practicing, will be turned into myriad pieces of clothing, decorations and housewares — anything made out of cloth.
“We’ve been blessed with younger members in the last few years,” said Carol Graves, historian of the Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild “They want to learn.”
Spinning captures the imagination; the wheel seems to work textile magic. More practically, it’s an economical pastime for knitters and weavers. These spinners aren’t quite Rumpelstiltskin, turning straw into gold. But spinning saves them lots of cash.
“You can make yarn for pennies a pound instead of buying yarn for dollars per ounce,” said Lizette Hopkins of El Dorado Hills. A pound of raw wool yields four to six large skeins, enough for a sweater. Depending on the breed, a mature sheep will produce 5 to 10 pounds of wool a year.
An avid knitter, Hopkins persuaded her husband to buy her a spinning wheel so she could make her own yarn. “If you learn to spin, you’re not limited to commercial yarns,” she said. “You can blend silk with wool or angora and add fun things.”
For a recent show, Hopkins created a scarf using yarn she spun out of shredded paper money discarded by the U.S. Treasury, studded with dice drilled to form beads — just the thing for a trip to Lake Tahoe, she said.
With more than 150 members, Sacramento’s guild is the largest in Northern California. It draws craftspeople ages 30-something to 90-plus. They drive hours to take part in study groups, spinning and chatting while they work.
The guild holds an annual open house, offering hands-on opportunities for newcomers.
That’s what first got Will Taylor hooked on yarn. As a child, he visited the spinners’ open house and was enthralled by a drop spinner, a simple device used since ancient times to turn millions of small fibers into a continuous piece by tightly twisting them together.
“Without it, there would have been no cloth, no clothes,” said Taylor, who is now guild president. “For thousands of years, people used drop spinners to make thread and yarn. It was so simple — they could do it anywhere.”
Likely invented in India, the spinning wheel first appeared in Europe in the Middle Ages as a faster way to make thread. The familiar configuration of large wheel-little pulley developed in the 1500s.
“In the scheme of things, the spinning wheel is a very modern tool,” said Taylor, who has taught spinning and weaving for many years.
Many Sacramento spinners grew up as knitters. They learned the craft as children in their native Europe or from immigrant parents.
“I just love the feel of the fiber in my hands,” said Granite Bay’s Monique Anglin, who learned to knit at age 3 in France. “I just find it very, very appealing.”
“I always knitted, since I was very young,” added Renee Tully, a Holocaust survivor who lives in Placerville. “But good yarn was becoming hard to find; I don’t like plastics, the synthetics that are everywhere.”
Tully now raises purebred Shetland sheep on a small ranch and spins her own yarn.
Sheep brought many women to spinning, said Beverly Fleming of Wheatland. “My husband wanted lamb chops, so we bought two ewes and one ram,” said the farmer’s wife. “Now we have 50 ewes; they had 36 babies in just the last two weeks. We get lots of wool — and I love to spin it — but if my husband had known, he would have gone to the supermarket.”
Similar Posts:
- Shanghai Sphere 2046 combines personal mobility with mass transportation
- 12 Days of Christmas: Gift Wrapping
- Green Style: A Christmas Tree Alternative
- 101 Ideas: Make your guest room stylish
- CK’s Home on Her Own Small Cool 2011
no comment untill now