Let The Spinning Wheel Spin

Continuing at Fort Walla Walla...

First you raise the sheep.  Then you load up the wagon and go out to the pasture...

take the sheep into the wagon and shear the sheep. (I guess the guitar is for evenings around the campfire.) 

(Did you know that in Montana it's against the law to have a sheep with you in the cab of your pickup without a chaperone?  And you thought Granpa knew useless trivia!)

Then you shear the sheep and "card" the wool (to get all the fibers going in the same direction).  Then you spin the fibers into yarn ...

See the little spinning wheel on the right?
And the giant spinning wheel on the left, and ...

... a loom in the center? 

You weave the yarn into fabric, cut it, and probably sew it by hand into homespun clothing.  One could always tell homespun at a glance because the yarn (and therefore the fabric) would not be smooth - there would be bumps and lumps where the yarn didn't spin perfectly.

There are a bunch of different kinds of spinning wheels:  Saxony wheels (horizontal), castle wheels (vertical), Norwegian wheels (horizontal on a bench) and what we call "modern," which can take on many forms.  Before the spinning wheel was invented (somewhere around the 1100's) yarn was spun by hand using a spindle and distaff.  The distaff would hold the fibers so they didn't get tangled until you could spin or twist them into yarn.  I'm thinkin' it would take a VERY coordinated lady to accomplish this task!

(Thank you, Wikipedia)

While we were in Virginia I bought a couple of these.  I'm waiting for our kids to buy some sheep so that I can start spinning yarn.  LOL !!!

The harness maker,

though, might get to use the sewing machine because it's mighty hard to push a needle through leather straps...

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