Today I share an old Norwegian film featuring inkle weaving, tablet weaving and whipcord braiding.
Video Wednesday- Norwegian Crafts
Today I share an old film showing Norwegian crafts. There is weaving, spinning, and other historic crafts you don’t often see in films such as fingerloop braiding and naalbinding.
Of interest is the spinnin technique uses a hook in place of a distaff. It also shows the plying technique which Norman Kennedy speaks about, where the yarn is run through a hook in the ceiling.
Video Wednesday- Spindle Review of Niddy Noddy’s Custom Medieval Style Spindle Stick with a Spiral Notch
This week I bring you the last of my reviews of Niddy Noddy’s Medieval Style Spindle Sticks. This one has a spiral notch.
Picture Friday- Weaving and Warping Board
Today I share a picture from Milan (not sure of the date).
Here we see a six shaft loom, winding multiple threads at a time onto a warping board and squished to the right is a spinning wheel.
I love the corrections in the writing underneath the minature!
Video Wednesday- Reviewing Niddy Noddy’s Custom Medieval Style Spindle
Sorry I’ve been very lax with editing my spindle reviews.
This is my review of the first of the custom designed spindles Niddy Noddy made for me, THis one has no notch.
These spindles were re-shaped to fit my extant whorls below the ‘belly’ of the spindle, often spindle sticks are too thin to use these whorls.
This spindle has no notch, and next week I’ll post the video with a spiral notch.
Sharing Saturday- a New Convert
So the facebook group on distaff spinning is called The Evangelical Church of Distaff Spinning. It’s not a religious group at all, but has got its name from the fact that when people try and love spinning with a distaff they want to tell everyone about it. Sometimes people will say “I’m a new convert to distaff spinning!”
Today I would like to share a fabulous post by Josefin Waltin:
Learning New Things – Medieval Style Spinning
She has also posted a great youtube video that includes some slow motion segments.
She has lots of fantastic (non-medieval) spinning videos and some great blog posts on a variety of spinning and not-spinning topics.
Sharing Saturday is where I like to share work by other spinners or living historians. Often I find something I’d like to share, but if you have something you’d like me to share then please let me know If it’s on the internet I’ll like to it, if not I’m happy to post it direct to my blog (with credit).
35,000 Views!
On the 30th of June 2012 I posted on my Live Journal “I have a spinning blog!” An excerpt is below:
My journal is friends only, has been for a while. I post a lot of costuming stuff to the dress diaries community when I want to share it with the world because I know I appreciate reading other’s diaries as they have helped me in the past. Also it is just interesting and inspiring reading what other people are doing. My spinning progress is something I’d like to share with the world because I know I would have found it very helpful. Still world, actually, if I found someone else doing it. I’ve joined a few communities, mostly yahoo groups and I’ve joined ravelry because there are some spinning groups on there. I’m reading lots of interesting stuff but a lot of it is modern based or based on non-European peoples. So I’ve started a blog as my portal to share my progress with the world. I don’t expect it to get high traffic or a stack of hits, that’s not what I’m after, but I feel better knowing that I’m contributing my research to the re-enactment community at large and it’s out there for anyone to find and access…
When I started this blog it was really because I felt a duty to share my knowledge in a public place. I expected that a couple of people might look at it, as in, one or two people. I thought it would be wonderful if a handful of people saw it and found it useful.
Well, today I have past 35,000 views which is (to me) a lot. Like, tens of thousands more than I expected a lot.
When I started learning about these spinning techniques I knew no one that did them. In my early research I found a few old films showing it, but the first person I ever saw talking about it was Norman Kennedy. While there are still people out there who argue that this style of spinning ‘doesn’t exist’, I come across a lot of re-enactors who, like me, are trying to learn about the old European spinning traditions and how they might apply to their period of historic interest. Also, I have come across modern spinners who aren’t re-enactors spinning this way or learning about it. The Evangelical Church of Distaff Spinning Group on facebook has over 300 members and is growing.
There is so much to learn, and so much to figure out, but I feel both proud and privileged to have become a part of this little spinning movement.
So I‘d like to say thank you to my fans and supporters, but an even bigger thank you to everyone who is learning about these techniques and sharing your learnings online. Please keep posting, and if you need a platform to publish anything let me know, I’m more than happy to share your work on my blog- even if you are just begining your efforts are of interest to other spinners. If you’ve published something on a blog or website of your own and would like me to link to it- please let me know.
And finally, this is a lot of views for me, if this isn’t a lot of views for you, or your blog has a wider audience than mine, then PLEASE POST ABOUT DISTAFF SPINNING! Because that way even more people can see it! 🙂
How to Use a Distaff While Sitting
A common sight in medieval manuscripts is ladies standing while spinning, like this lady spinning wool amongst the sheep.
Also common, is the lady taking a break to spin, like this lady spinning wool amongst the sheep.
Which sometimes raises the question “How do I use a distaff while sitting?”
Well, there are many answers and the right answer is what works for you.
This lady has a beautiful standing distaff.
Grabow Altarpiece, Bertram von Minden, c 1379-1383
Sometimes the lady clasps the distaff between her knees
1380, Mary spinning
I would love a standing distiff, but I don’t have one yet. People have asked how I sit with my distaff and as it’s hard to explain I decided to do a video.
This is simply how I sit with my distaff, what works for you may be different. Please feel free to share what works for you in the comments!
Spinning Experiment- We Need You!
Tell a bunch of spinners that the output of a medieval spinner could be no more than 20 metres per hour, and they’ll want to prove you wrong. As such, the folks over at the Evangelical Church of Distaff Spinning are conducting a spinning experiment, looking at the production rates of modern spinners. The experiment collects a wide range of date, from spinning method, years of experience to fibre spun, tools used and more. Collecting all of this data means that we can use the results for different things. For example, we could compare grasped spinning production rates to that with suspended spinning, or we could look at how years of experience affects production.
I encourage you all to take part, here is the form you need to complete and you can take part multiple times.
When you are filling out the form, pay attention when it asks you to enter in the amount spun- just do that! There’s a slot for time spun also so your production rate per hour can be calculated. Don’t be clever and work out the average you spun in an hour, otherwise you’ll confuse the results:
Oops!
At least it gave me a laugh! The preliminary results (without my mistake) are up on the facebook group so if you’re not a member, join to check them out. But we need more responses, so please take part!
Video Wednesday- NiddyNoddy’s Medieval Spindle Stick a Spiral Notch.
This week I bring you the next review of my five new NiddyNoddy Spindles. This spindle handled both my fine and coarser wool very well. The deep spiral notch meant there is no need for a half hitch and it works very well for suspended or semi-suspended techniques as well as grasped spinning.
The packaging that I was spinning is Lleyn, which is a welsh meat breed. Neil from Niddy Noddy mentioned that a lot of wool of this quality is buried or burned due to the nature of the wool industry in the UK which is a shame as it is a good usable wool.
This spindle weighs 10g which is lighter than the first spindle I reviewed, and while it went ok with my lightweight 6g whorl I preferred it with my 20g whorl.
You can find Niddy Noddy on facebook: www.facebook.com/niddynoddyuk and etsy www.etsy.com/uk/shop/NiddyNoddyUK
You can read more about other tools for spinning and other brands of spindles here
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