Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Fig. 48. —The flax wheel.
How cotton is spun. Did you ever see any one spin by hand? One day the Girls' League went to Marjorie Allen's grandmother's house. She took the girls to the attic and showed them her grandmother's spinning wheels (Fig. 47). There was a large one for spinning woolen yarn. This she called the great wheel. Then there was a small one called the flax wheel (Fig. 48) for spinning flax, or linen, into yarn for weaving. Grandmother sat down and showed them how to spin (Fig. 49). She pressed her foot on the treadle just like a sewing machine; and the wheels went round. The flax was on a little holder called a distaff. See the pictures (Figs. 48 and 49) of the wheels. She held and drew the flax while the wheels of the machine put in the twist. That is just what the modern spinning machine does, but it can accomplish much more in an hour than grandmother did in a day. Still it is a great satisfaction to possess some of the beautiful old textiles spun and woven by grandmother's hands. The girls had the pleasure of opening a great chest in the attic and looking at the hand-woven sheets and coverlets which Grandmother Allen prizes so highly. Barbara Oakes and Mollie Stark fairly clapped their hands and said, "How beautiful the colors are." The coverlets were made of wool and cotton yarns. Grandmother showed the girls the hand cards which she used when a girl in helping her mother prepare wool into carded rolls for spinning. Do you remember that the cotton at the factory passed through a carding machine to be cleaned and made into a cotton rope? Grandmother told the girls she used to do the same for wool. She used the little hand cards and drew the boards with the fine teeth back and forth to clean the fibers, and then made little rolls for the great wheel to spin. The picture (Fig. 50) shows how the hand cards are used. Wasn't that a long, tedious process?
Courtesy of Miss Mary E. Hoag.
Fig. 49.—Grandmother Allen sat at her flax wheel and showed the girls how to spin.
