Antique Spinning Wheel

This summer, a long-time friend of my mother's sold her house house. My mom helped her to clean out some storage on the property, and unearthed this spinning wheel in the process. The wheel was in pieces. My mom brought it home and carefully cleaned the years of accumulated dust and lanolin off of it.



We visited my parents in early August for my brother's wedding, and my sweetie spent most of his free time working on the wheel. At the end of our stay, I was able to spin some bluefaced leicester roving on it! My mom's friend thinks that this wheel is at least 100 years old. It was passed down to her from her mother-in-law who did not spin, and she feels that it must have been her grandmother-in-law's or her great-grand-mother-in-law's. Considering the age of the wheel, the parts are in good shape. The wheel includes three leather pieces on the footman, which were brittle, and so we replaced them with some leather from my grandfather. I have three scotch tension spinning wheels, and so I am not at all familiar with the double drive system, but we were able to use some candle wicking (thanks Dad!) to rig up the double drive band. Though the ratio was better suited for spinning chunky yarns (I prefer to spin fine yarns), it was really fun to spin on this historic artifact. We all kept wishing that the wheel could talk because we are certain that it has a rich history to tell. If you know anything about this spinning wheel, please contact me!