Double-flyer flax wheel in action!

Amanda demonstrating how to spin on a double-flyer flax wheel. The wheel, and expertly dressed distaff, were borrowed from Ineke vd Heijden during a spinning weekend with the Dutch Spingroup at Mennerode, Oct 2008. The clip was video'd by Magreet Ward. I managed to keep it going for all of 3 minutes, and it looks really impressive, providing you don't look too closely at the thickness or quality of the thread I'm producing. As you will probably hear from the soundtrack, I wished I had a third hand to dip in the water pot to smooth the threads!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Spinning
• flax
• Dutch Spingroup

[IxtabsKnitting]

Amanda, you are super-coordinated to spin like this!

With a wheel like this, is it possible to just spin onto one of the bobbins and then when that's full, to go fill up the second bobbin? Or are the bobbins meant to be filled simultaneously?

Also how it the wheel driven? Is it a double-drive or something else entirely? *boggles*

Thanks so much for sharing the video with us!

[ADHUK]

Aha, you didn't see the half hour before, with me desperately trying to treadle the wheel and keep it going!

Spinning on two bobbins at once was intended to double production. As far as I can tell, from looking at similar wheels in books, it probably from Switzerland ca 1850.

It is a double drive, there are two grooves on the drive wheel and a doubled band is run in each, it is designed so that the bands don't catch. You could just take one band off and run one flyer at once if you wanted

[ADHUK]

Hi,

Yes that's a water pot, but as you probably heard, I was wishing I had a third hand to dip in it!

I can't take credit for dressing the distaff, my friend Ineke who loaned me the wheel had done a very impressive job with that!

Thanks - Bye for now!

Amanda

[riverrim]

Super! Fantastic! Amazing!

Thank you so much for this demonstration! It is so helpful to see how the distaff is dressed. Is that a water tray at the base of the distaff?