School: Mount Delvin

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1. The Spinning Wheel

   

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   Their is no spinning wheel in our house but my grandfather told me that his mother had one. He said that first she would tease the wool and then she would oil it and rub the oil into it with her hands and then draw it with her hands. And when she would have that done she would card it. While carding it she would have a card in each hand. The cards had two handles and teeth. She used then to put one card on her knee and the other in her right hand. She then used to put a certain amount of wool on the card that was on her knee. When she had that done she used make rolls of it then she would put the rolls in a box.
   Then the next day she would take out the spinning wheel and commence to spin. First she would put the belt on the wheel the belt was made of wool. Then she would turn the wheel with the first finger of her right hand and pull the thread with her left hand she would keep spinning till she had enough of twist in the thread. She would then wind the thread around a thing called the prostha. My grandfather told me he saw balls of thread hanging up bigger than a football. The thread was now ready for the weaver. A man named Thos Sleaman used to name a day for her to bring the thread to get woven.

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. activities
      1. economic activities
         1. trades and crafts (~4,680)
            1. spinning and weaving (~482)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Patrick Walsh

   Gender

   Male

   Informant

   Mrs Mary Walsh

   Gender

   Female

   Age

   80

   Address

   Ballinross, Co. Roscommon