Textile Terms: On tenterhooks

It’s been so long since anyone has seen either a tenter, or the hooks on one, that the word and the idea behind it are now quite mysterious, but at one time, the phrase on tenterhooks would have evoked an image that was immediately understandable.   Tenter hooks were L-shaped staples, much like a bent nail, placed at [...]

Textile Terms : The “Distaff Side”

A distaff is a tool used in spinning, to hold the unspun fibers, usually flax, to keep them untangled and ready to be spun. In the photo to the left, it is the object on the upper left that appears covered in long hair.
Because spinning was such a universal chore during medieval times, the distaff [...]

Medieval Images: The Distaff

Click on individual images for larger view.

This woman is shown beating her husband with her distaff!

detail from a Nativity scene

Medieval Images of Early Spinning Wheels and Yarn Winder

Woman spinning on the great or walking wheel.
Luttrell Psalter, British Library, London 14th c. England
The great wheel produced thread more quickly than the drop spindle, but the thread was lower quality. It was underspun (not twisted enough) and uneven. The wheel was turned by pushing a stick against the spokes (above) or [...]

Medieval Images- Using Drop Spindles

In all of these images, the spinners are using drop spindles and distaffs.

Fiber Folklore – Sun, Moon, and Talia

It’s a shame that many kids today aren’t familiar with the famous, classic fairy tales. Now that I’ve lived a good many years, I often recognize connections and underlying meanings in the stories I learned as a little girl. Many of them involve spinning, flax, and wool, in one way or another. Here is an [...]

Knitting Tips: Homemade “Green ” Sock Blockers

Need a little frame to air dry or photograph your hand knit socks? The ones I’ve seen in knitting stores cost $18 or more. It’s easy to make your own, out of something we all have around the house, a simple wire coat hanger. The kind that’s plastic or rubber coated works best as they [...]

Knitting News: Knitting Your Voice

Ran across an article this morning in the online mag Make (link ), about a new knitting machine that has been configured by two German women to record a voice and   knit its waveforms. Electronic knitting machines are now available for home use, but it would take some doing to program it to do [...]

Ancient spindle whorls

Collection of bronze age stone whorls unearthed at Egnazia, an excavated Greco-Roman city and necropolis in Southern Italy. The largest one is evidently a weight of some type.
Egnazia

Textile Tools: The Lucet

Lucet, as verb, is a method of making braided cording or lacing that dates from the Viking era. Lucet, as noun, is the name of the little 2 tined tool used to make the cord, which is strong, square, and only slightly elastic. There are many different techniques, each of which will produce a different [...]