c. 8000 B.C.E. – Evidence of flax cultivation in the Near East.[3]
c. 6500 B.C.E. – Approximate date of Naalebinding examples found in Nehal Hemar cave, Israel. This technique, which uses short separate lengths of thread, predated the invention of spinning (with its continuous lengths of thread) and requires that all of the as-yet unused thread be pulled through the loop in the sewn material.[4] This requires much greater skill than knitting in order to create a fine product.[5]
c. 6000 B.C.E. – Evidence of woven textiles used to wrap the dead at Çatalhöyük in Anatolia.[3]
c. 5000 B.C.E. – Production of linen cloth in Ancient Egypt, along with other bast fibers including rush, reed, palm, and papyrus.[6]
4200 B.C.E. – Date of Mesolithic examples of Naalebinding found in Denmark, marking spread of technology to Northern Europe.[7]
c. 3000 B.C.E. – Breeding of domesticated sheep with a wooly fleece rather than hair in the Near East.[3]
200 B.C.E. to 200 C.E. – Approximate date of earliest evidence of “Needle Knitting” in Peru, a form of Naalebinding that preceded local contact with the Spanish.[8]
WordPress.com provides great blog stats for every blog owner–we can see how many people come to the pages, and sometimes where they come from, like a search engine page. Today, one of my visitors had come through a search page, so I clicked on it out of curiosity to see where my blog landed in the search–you know, how many pages deep did the person have to search before clicking on The Spinning Universe?
By the time I got to page 10, I thought, wow, this person was really persistent. I didn’t think most people looked past the first 2-3 pages. I usually don’t. By the time I got to page 20, I thought I had somehow dropped off the search and was never going to come to my blog. In the meantime, I had gotten interested in the many creative blog and website names that spinners and knitters had come up with, so I went to page 45, jotting down funny and interesting domain names, before I finally stopped. I was disappointed, thinking I’d show up at least before page 45.
I clicked back to page 1, wondering what great domain names I had missed before I started noticing them on page 20. What do you know, halfway down page 1 — The Spinning Universe Blog. I had totally missed it, assuming first page status was completely out of the question.
We write and post, saying it doesn’t really matter if you read it because our joy is in the creative expression, not in whether anyone sees it. So now you know that’s a big fat lie! We LOVE it when you read our blogs!!!!! (we being any blog writer)
Great names I came across as I searched for my own blog:
Uh oh. I knew it would happen sooner or later. I have had about three days here by myself, with each child away on a different adventure, and no one needing anything from me. I thought I would be spinning for hours and hours, but the one thing that fascinates me more than actually spinning has captured me…researching about spinning!
It all started innocently enough…that curiosity got me wondering…What is the oldest textile that archaeologists have located? I mean, I just wanted to know when the first shirt was made. Really, that’s all.
But when my 20-year old daughter came into my bedroom yesterday, after my three days alone in the house, I’ll confess the room did look like that scene out of A Beautiful Mind, when John Nash’s wife walks into his office….(okay, there were some content differences….mathematical genius vs. curious spinning woman, left alone for three days…)
Scene from "A Beautiful Mind" taken from official movie website
But charts, diagrams, outlines, questions, and pages and pages of written notes were scattered all over my bed (my primary research spot), and a few pages with color-coded highlights were taped together and thumb-tacked to the wall. Josie walked in the room with a puzzled expression (Mom, have you lost your mind?). I found myself backpedaling to find a suitable explanation for all this…..what? all this…curiosity?
“Ummm…I had just been wondering about when people first made shirts?” ending with a question in my voice, hoping she’d accept the logic of one question leading to, well, all this.
Ah, the power of one question! When was the first shirt made? has taken me on a remarkable journey through the history of humanity, and the archeological, theological, scientific, and curious anomalies that accompany such a journey. (This whole line of questioning was begun after discovering the spinning wheel is a modern invention.)
Archeology is most fascinating–not only for what is dug up from the earth to tell us about people and their communities and habits–but also for the drama of pride, family feuds, hurt feelings, and ego of the scientists themselves, and their resultant actions. Like the famous Leakeys–the father, Louis, finds an astounding skull that might be the oldest human fossil….until young son Richard grows up and finds one that might be even older…and for 20 years, a dispute rages about the dates. Hmmmmm…
Or the scientist who made such bold claims about his find before they were verified, that his later embarrassment led him to keep the bones locked in a closet for many years, depriving the scientific community of the value they did hold. It’s riveting, truly.
Have I found the answer to my first question yet? No, I really haven’t. But I have discovered a bunch more questions….
I love visiting my mom’s house in the beautiful Texas hill country. There seems to be a peace in the hill country all its own–the many clear rivers, the luscious greenery, interesting caves and hills and canyons–the area is a treasure. My mom’s house is a treasure too, a tiny 1911 cottage with a huge yard that she has completely transformed in the twelve or so years she’s lived there.
Mom's 1911 Cottage in the Texas Hill Country
I see now that my mom is truly an artist. She’s also a mom, and a professor, and a friend, and a colleague, and a writer, and a speaker. I respect and admire all those things about her. But one huge reason I like going to her house is to be in the middle of her artistic expression, and to feel the way it makes me feel. Engaged. Interested. Peaceful. Happy, even. Surrounded by beauty and art.
None of it is “museum art”. You won’t be impressed with famous names or even pieces that look like they should be in a museum. Her art is truly expressive, mostly folk art and functional art. I mean, she has an antique doll head on top of a plant in a teapot. Who does this? Well, she does, and it’s fabulous.
My Mom's Folk Art
On the long drive back to my home, I started thinking about how I feel in her house, and why I like her particular style so much. Maybe partly because she’s my mom, and I seem to have inherited her “quirky” gene. But I think it’s mainly because everything in her house feels intentional. Every beautiful or even strange object (like the doll’s head) is placed precisely where she wants it to be, with intent. This feels substantial to me, and I like it. It is artistry.
Functional art intrigues me very much because it represents the creative spirit in all of us (see Angus’ post about Art.) Shaker furniture may be the most recognized example of the best of functional art–pure beauty in its simple lines and curves, the best artistry and craftsmanship in its making, and an enduring statement about incorporating art and beauty into our daily mundane tasks. My mom has a lot of functional art in her home. The plastic cups we drink from are even artfully colorful in her exposed cabinets.
Exposed Cabinets
But there’s a reason they aren’t just plastic cups, but are instead colorful, textured, and perfect for the spot. The reason is because she’s an artist, and her home is her canvas.
I returned from a trip to Boston last night, and as I waited outside the terminal for my daughter to pick me up, I took out some knitting I had carried with me.
A mid-forties’ man walked by me and did a double-take. A huge grin spread over his face, and he said, “Now, that’s something you don’t see every day!” He nodded in my direction, and went on. He’s right, I thought. You really don’t see people with handcrafts in public much. Which of course got me thinking about a time when making your own garments was the only means you had of staying clothed. Now that’s a motivator!
As mentioned in the previous post, I am completely flabbergasted by the importance of the drop spindle in over 10,000 years of human history. The spindle was the only tool for spinning threads and yarns to make everything on earth ever made from fabric or cloth, up until recent history (read more here about the history of the spinning wheel).
WOW! This is the tool that spun the world!
Here is a picture of a drop spindle and some beautifully dyed bamboo yarn that MonChere purchased as her first experiment into spinning.
She spun amazingly well, as I’ve hear that bamboo is not easily spun!
But now you can see how basic and simple the spindle is, and if you weren’t flabbergasted before, I hope you are now. Otherwise, you might be completely overtaken with the mundane-ness of buying your clothing at the store and need a shake up. Or you might be dead.
MonChere gave the unspun bamboo to Arabella to spin on her wheel, and here is the delightful result (Arabella is quite the spinner).
Everything in our universe spins, from the tiniest of atoms to the mightiest of planets. Everything spins. Is this why there is so much peace to be found in spinning wool into yarn? In the act of spinning, are we emulating the Almighty’s act of creating and sustaining?
The Spinning Universe 