To be The Spiderwoman

Let's talk about... no, not about sex this time but about spinning. When I was six years old it was obvious that my grandma and her sisters spinned wool. They had spinning wheels and guarded them as Smaug his treasure under The Lonely Mountain. Nobody, children especially, could touch them. In fact, it was very easy to demage a spinning wheel or change the adjustments. And there was something incredibly fascinating in a spinning wheel for children.

Worsted / Shaun the Sheep

I dreamed of spinning. Everybody knows the story of The Sleeping Beauty. I felt strong urge to learn it. But my grandma thought it was useless and unnecessary in 20th century. And my dream was put ad acta.

When I started my adventure with reenactment I asked one of my friend to teach me to spin with a spindle. I bought 50 g of merino wool in a haberdasher and began spinning. It was a horror.

Three of my spindles: the heaviest one, the medium one and the Russian Spindle

Today I teach others to spin and I always repeat: first 100 g of wool you have to spoil and throw away, second 100 g of wool you can give to your foe and just third 100 g you can give your friend.

To my surprise my second work was quite good. I spinned 500 g of Polish mixed wool. Rosamar dyed it and I knotted The Rainbow Shawl.

But I wanted to have a spinning wheel. And suddenly and unexpectedly my friend found  Princess Thecla on Polish auction website.

Princess Thecla

One of my first work was The Celestial Peace. The merino wool was dyed in several hues of blue, then it was divided in two pieces. One of pieces was spinned as a single thread. Second part was divided into four pieces and spinned also as one thread. Then both threads were spinned in a double yarn. This way of spinning is called: a fractal. I wonder what to do with this yarn.

The colourful worsted

The fractal spinned yarn

The Celestial Peace

Another kind of work with multicoloured worsted is making necklaces we called snail's or shells. Only few spinners in Poland could do such works because you need a spinning wheel with a quite big arterial hole in a spindle complex.

A snail's yarn

First you have to spin wool in irregular thread: thin and thick alternately. Then you can twist it around thin thread. And the necklace is ready.

The Shell Necklace

My Princess Thecla allowed me to prepare threads for warps and wefts for my Kipchak tunic made of Irish wool: naturally brown, soft and very delicate.

Irish wool

The difference: the same wool but different yarns

Textiles for my Kipchak tunic

*The name of my Princess refers to an occasional villain from the adventures of Maya the Bee: a female spider who spin a lot of threads.