Yarn was wound from the spindle on clock-reels, and also on hand-reels called “niddy-noddies.” To be knitted it had also to be washed and cleaned.
To spin the finest yarn was a much desired accomplishment among housewives. It is said that one Mistress Mary Prigge once spun a pound of wool into eighty-four thousand yards—that is, nearly forty-eight miles.
All these different manipulations lasted many months, though they could be accomplished in much shorter time; they also furnished occupation for an entire family, from the grandmother down to the children, when on long winter evenings they all assembled before the kitchen fire.
WEAVER’S SHUTTLES
It is impossible here to go into the home process of weaving this wool and linen thread; but it was no less laborious than all that had gone before. Suffice it to say that in almost every house throughout New England, Pennsylvania, and Virginia the hand-loom was to be found, and every farmer’s daughter could weave as well as spin, although weaving was not so wholly woman’s work as was spinning. Homespun linen after being woven had to undergo about forty processes of bleaching, as it was still light brown in color. It was often kept out on the grass for weeks at a time, until at least sixteen months had elapsed since the planting of the flaxseed to the final evolution of the finished sheet or pillow-case. What modern linen is as firm, solid, and close-woven, and capable of being used a hundred years hence as this can be used to-day? What needle-work so fine? One can hardly believe that the same hands which made the soap and greased the wool could hem like that, embroider the finest edging and other work, make bead-bags, and knit the daintiest lace. All-around women they must have been to pass back and forth from the coarsest to the finest labor, and to keep their minds alert as well. Listen to one Abigail Foote’s diary, in the year 1775, and she a young girl:—
“Fix’d gown for Prude,—Mend Mother’s Riding-hood,—Spun short thread,—Fix’d two gowns for Welsh’s girls,—Carded tow,—Spun linen,—Worked on Cheese-basket, Hatchel’d flax with Hannah, we did 51 lbs. a-piece,—Pleated and ironed,—Read a sermon of Doddridge’s,—Spooled a piece,—Milked the cows,—Spun linen, did 50 knots,—Made a Broom of Guinea-wheat straw,—Spun thread to whiten,—Set a Red dye,—Had two Scholars from Mrs. Taylor’s,—I carded two pounds of whole wool and felt Nationly,—Spun harness twine, scoured the pewter.”
All this besides washing, cooking, weaving tape, knitting, weeding, picking geese, and making social visits. And yet we talk about modern rush and hurry, and the “strenuous life.” It is merely a change of occupation. We hear it constantly said of our ancestors’ fine needle-work, delicate hand-writing, etc., “Oh, they had more time to do such things.” Would not Abigail Foote dispute that, think you? Also Mrs. John May, a prominent Boston woman, who writes in her diary for one day:
“A large kettle of yarn to attend upon. Lucretia and self rinse, scour through many waters, get out, dry, attend to, bring in, do up and sort 110 score of yarn; this with baking and ironing. Then went to hackling flax.”