spinning wheel

On Why Spinning is Art

| Teresa Craighead

Comment by Angus on History Has Been Woven by a Stick – The Astonishing Drop Spindle, on April 27, 2010.  This is too good to miss!

Angus says,

Beautiful and functionalSpinning is Art.

Art is, at its most beautiful, best, intrinsic essence, three things:

1. useful


2. metaphorical


3. a reflection of God

When useful, art stops being a thing to view, and begins to be a part of us.


When metaphorical, art is both the thing at hand, and a representation of greater things.


When a reflection of God, it is a humble desire to be more like Him. He is, after all, the Creator; the Artist.

I too, am flabbergasted.

History Has Been Woven by a Stick — The Astonishing Drop Spindle

| Teresa Craighead

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).

The “Modern” Spinning Wheel?

| Teresa Craighead

Because we live in a time when clothing is simply something we grab off a rack in a store, we’ve lost appreciation for what it takes to make fabric or cloth of any kind.  We rarely think of it at all–unless we were raised in sewing homes, like me, where our mothers measured, pinned, and cut large batches of cloth into pieces they would sew into our tops, shorts and matching Easter dresses.  Or maybe you’ve admired a period costume in a film and given a nod to the past ideas of spinning or whatever else it took to make such things.  That was me.  Until I started spinning myself.  (Yes, it was only 2 weeks ago!)

My natural curiosity got to me and I started wondering about origins of spinning wheels, who invented what, and so forth.  So I dove in to take a look, and I am simply flabbergasted at what I have discovered. Flabbergasted.

The spinning wheel itself is actually a very modern device, and used in only about 8% of the time that humanity has been wearing clothes and making cloth.  The very first images and mentions of spinning wheels only date back a mere 760 years. Here are some key context points:  The Magna Carta was established in 1212, Marco Polo was packing for China in 1271, and the Vikings were settling down and raising sheep instead of pillaging. (Okay, these things seem old, I’ll admit, especially compared to the latest version of MicroSoft Windows.  But it’s only 800 years!  We’ve been wearing clothes a lot longer than 800 years!!)

So, I next had to ask:  What on earth was used prior to 1250, and the invention of the spinning wheel?

The fiber: animal wool or hair, fibrous plants such as reeds, bamboo & flax, and silk

The spinning tool: a spindle and a pair of hands

The fibers have stayed consistent throughout history and are an assortment of animal and plant fibers. A spindle is basically a stick (or bone or other hard material carved like a stick) upon which fiber is twirled to produce a “twist” while the fibers are also being slowly drawn apart.  The fibers “twist” into yarn, and if they’ve first been “combed” in the same direction, the fibers “twist” even more easily. That is spinning in a nutshell.  But what’s so astonishing is that for 11,200 years every piece of cloth or fabric or yarn or thread was produced by a pair of human hands on a stick.

Now aren’t you flabbergasted, too?

Spinning is an Act of Creation

| Teresa Craighead

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 Lord is my Shepherd
They know something we don't.