Wool is spun into yarn

Wool is spun into yarn

The spinning wheel was the early machine for turning fibre into thread or yarn which was then woven into cloth on a loom. This replaced the earlier method of hand spinning in which the individual fibres were drawn out of a mass of wool held on a stick, or distaff, twisted together to form a continuous strand and wound around a second stick or spindle.

With the arrival of the spinning wheel to Ireland in the middle ages the distaff carrying the mass of wool was held in the left hand and the wheel slowly turned with the right. Holding the fibre at an angle to the spindle produced the necessary twist. This twisted thread gathers itself on a bobbin and the- end- result is a thread used for sewing or weaving.

So important were the skills of spinning and weaving in early Ireland, that the Brehon laws, written in or around 600 to 800 A.D. lay down as part of a wife’s entitlement in case of divorce, that she should keep her spindles, wool bags, weaver’s reeds (part of a loom) and a share of the yarn she had spun and the cloth she had woven.

Without the skill to spin a thread and to weave it into cloth, textiles as we know them today would not exist. The role of women in this process cannot be underestimated nor forgotten. The invention of the spindle for twisting fibres into yarn was on a level with that of the wheel, in terms of importance for the progress of civilisation.

 

 

Girl spinning in West Cork