Hello everyone, It’s that time of year again! This year Tour de Fleece is happening from the 29th June – 21st July.
Last year I made myself a to-do list for TDF and found it really helped to keep me organised and more productive, so I’m making one again this year. I was going to pick a couple of fleeces from my stash to work my way through, but I was fortunate enough last month to obtain some gorgeous Zwartbles fleeces from a local farmer whom I promised some knitted hats as part payment. Since I want to make sure he has them before it turns cold again, I will be focusing on processing Zwartbles this TDF so I can knit some hats over the summer. For a bit of fun, this year I’ll also be completing 4 challenges set by friends and family, so look out for those every Sunday.
As per usual, I’m going to aim to spend at least 1 hour per day on my challenge, but won’t be too strict about it, some days I may spend more time, some days less. I’m also including fibre prep (carding/combing) within my challenge, but I have done some prep beforehand, so I’m hoping to remain spinning focused. This years’ to-do list is:
Zwartbles – carding/combing, spinning & plying 1 whole fleece (I also want to experiment with spinning in the grease using this fleece too).
BFL/Camel Roving from Yarntings – I bought this at EAYF with the intention of spinning it on my Turkish spindle. This should make a good travel project from when I’m away from my wheel.
Shetland Sample – Spin and ply on my other spindle – this will form another portable project.
Spinning Challenge Sunday’s – Each week I will attempt a new challenge using yarn and wool already on my wheel/spindle.
Hopefully these projects should give some variety to TDF this year, even though my focus will be on one breed and should also give me some flexibility should I be away from my wheel. As usual, I’ll be posting daily updates on my instagram and weekly updates here (the first update will be on Sunday 7th July).
If you are also joining in with Tour de Fleece (whether part of a group or going it alone like me) I’d love to hear how you get on – feel free to share your progress/goals in the comments section and if you want to find out what I got up to last year I’ve included links to my wrap-up’s below.
Herdwicks have been around in the UK since the 12th century and there is significant debate over how they arrived; some stories say they came from a shipwreck from the Spanish Armada, while others suggest they originated in Scandinavia and came to England with the Vikings (the name is believed to have come from the Norse herdvyck or herdwyck, meaning “sheep pasture”). Either way, today’s Herdwicks are one of Britain’s hardiest sheep, adapted to living in the rugged landscapes of the Cumbrian Lake District.
Fleece Research
Herwick’s handle is considered ‘harsh’ by the British Wool Board, with a staple length of 10-20cm. As a hardy fibre, it is used commercially for durable items such as carpets and insulation, though if the soft undercoat can be separated, it can be used for making outer garments. The fleece has multiple components a soft undercoat, kemp fibre and heterotypic hair which changes consistency with the seasons, giving the fleece a textured look. The multiple components of the fleece make it quite unique and Robson & Ekarius say this presents a challenge for fibre preparation, but happily their recommendation in Fleece & Fibre Sourcebook is to experiment and just ‘go for it’!
Since I want to showcase all the textures, I won’t be separating out the different fibre types or dyeing the wool (due to the kemp hair it will not take dyes evenly anyway). I also want to link my project with the more commercial use for this fibre, so I have plans to turn the fleece into a rug, but to spin the fibres loosely so the different fibres show through to put my own handmade spin on it.
Further Reading
The following sources have been used for reference
A long time ago I decided I was going to catalogue the sheep breeds I work and the projects they were used for in a blanket/wall hanging project made up of individual squares. I made the first square from my Ryeland fleece two years ago and have been occupied with finishing other big projects since, but before TDF begins and I get carried away with other big projects, I wanted to tick off some of the smaller tasks that have been on my to-do list for a long time.
I made a Romney cowl back in 2022 inspired by the Owler’s of Romney Marsh and decided that I would scale down the pattern to make a knitted breed square. The pattern is adapted from the Cable Button Collar from the Wensleydale Sheep shop and I reduced the stitch count to 32 stitches and only knitted one repeat of the cable pattern. Because my handspun yarn isn’t always an even diameter (the Romney certainly wasn’t!), this square turned out oblong, but after blocking it was slightly more square – I’m not too worried about this since I would much prefer the finished project to be whimsically irregular anyway. I do still have quite a bit of Romney yarn left over for further projects, and will probably try to get this cable pattern into them as I think it’s a prefect homage to the story of the breed.
This project will be ever evolving, but I’m going to make more of an effort to try and make a relevant breed square after each major project, so I don’t have a lingering to-do list!
I’ve jumped straight to a finished project post today, mainly because I haven’t processed the fibre completely from a raw fleece so there isn’t a great deal to say about the fibre prep and spinning. I will get around to doing an ‘about Gotland’ post when I work with a larger quantity of this fleece in the future.
Background & Design
A couple of years ago I knitted a friend some long gloves inspired by Gandalf’s from The Hobbit and instantly thought they would make a really good base for embellishment. That idea sat in the back of mind for some time until I found the perfect combination of fibre. In my 2023 EAYF adventures I purchased some Gotland roving from The Threshing Barn; whole Gotland fleece usually holds quite a premium because of the gorgeous locks, so I thought this roving would be a good experiment. I began spindle spinning and plying the fleece during a university field course and finished it during TDF last year. Gotland has quite a long staple length and the prepared roving was quite slippery, so I found spinning from the fold gave me more control over the diameter of the yarn. Shortly after, I attended a local yarn fair where a vendor was selling small quantities of raw Gotland locks and I remembered my idea of embellishing gloves.
In a happy twist of fate I discovered that Stansborough Grey’s (the sheep belonging to Stansborough Mill in New Zealand who provided the wool fabric for costumes in LOTR) are a breed genetically derived from Gotland sheep, so I felt it was meant to be! While I waited for some wool to dry for my Victorian Jumper over the festive season, I cast on…
Making
I wanted to put my own wool-witchy spin on the gloves, so opted to add beads to the cuffs. The pattern was a simple stocking stitch with ribbed cuff knitted in the round, divided for the thumb and cast off in an Icelandic bind off. I used 3.5mm mini circular needles which I’d never used before and I’m not sure if I like them – they were fiddly to hold and had a tendency to make my hands ache. I might save them for if I’m travelling with a small knitting project as it was handy not having to worry about dropping stitches when putting them aside.
To jazz up the cuffs I decided to add little beads at random intervals. Since I didn’t know how many beads I would use, I couldn’t pre-thread them onto the yarn, so opted for the method of placing a bead onto a crochet hook and then hooking a stitch and sliding the bead onto it before placing it back on the needle to be knitted.
The start of my knitting and little bowl of beadsGloves after Blocking
After knitting I washed and blocked the gloves before considering how to add the locks. I’ve seen various methods of securing locks from weaving/knitting them in directly to attaching them using a latch hook, but none of these seemed like they would be very practical for gloves. My handspun Gotland had seemed a willing felter during washing, so I wondered if it might also needlefelt. I placed the glove over a felting brush and used a crochet hook to pull the end of a lock through a stitch and then needlefelted the end of the lock to the glove. It worked surprisingly well, so I continued to place locks across the wrist line on the top half of the glove (I felt the locks would have been impractical on the bottom).
I’ve made a video of the process below and a special shout out to my wonderful friend leanagibsonphotography for taking some stunning pictures!
I am so pleased with how these turned out, they were such good fun to make and even more fun to wear (and I now want to add locks to the cuffs and collars of all my clothes!).
I had a lovely time yesterday at East Anglia Yarn Festival 2024 chatting wool with lovely people and feeling very inspired. Since I have a lot of wool waiting to be spun (and quite a lot of handspun waiting to be used), I was on the lookout for patterns and haberdashery that I could use with my handspun, rather than buying more yarn.
Links to vendors websites are provided for reference and are not affiliate links.
Fibre/Yarn
The Wensleydale sheep shop had some raw Wensleydale wool which will be useful for project plans that need long locks, and while I was there I also picked up some scraps of yarn as they come in handy for repairs and embellishment. I bought some beautiful roving from Yarn Tings which is a BFL/camel blend. I haven’t tried spinning with camel before, so plan to use this as an easy spinning project during tour de fleece this year. I also purchased some naturally dyed silk embroidery threads from Allium Threads and some silk/wool threads from Wild Field Fibre as a gift for my mum this year.
Knitting
I was on the lookout for knitting patterns, but can be quite fussy when it comes to designs. I loved the look of hirismakes falling leaves sweater and thought it might be a good fit for the Castlemilk moorit fibre I have waiting to be spun. I bumped into Jenn Monahan from fibreworkshop who was one of the first fibre vendors I ever met and purchased her new Drover jumper pattern inspired by the narrow roads sheep used to be transported along. I also treated myself to a handmade glass cauldron stitch marker from Flame Knits.
Miscellany
I paid a visit to Lilliput Wight‘s stall for some buttons and saw a card by Tilly Flop Designs that ‘matched’ the one I bought last year. I bought a linocut postcard from Beccy Mundy and finally some madder root and logwood chips from Burnt Fen alpacas which will come in handy for dyeing adventures later on.
Despite coming away with lots of new project inspiration, I do have to tackle some of the smaller projects that have been on my to-do list for a while now that my Victorian jumper is finished (some of them using supplies I bought at EAYF last year!). Much of my time is being taking up studying at the moment, but I hope to be able to have more time to spend crafting soon.
In the meantime, if you have any recommendations of yarn festivals or events then let me know in the comments below.
I cast on this project spontaneously back in 2021 after I had to frog a lace mitten with a sizing issue in the pattern. I’ve never knitted anything as big as a jumper before as I generally find myself losing interest in long lengths of repetitive knitting, but I’ve wanted a proper Victorian cycling jumper for a long time now, so after coming across an original pattern online which is nearly identical to a jumper in the collections in the MET museum, I decided to give it a go. At the suggestion of my friends I’ve also made a short video of the process at the bottom of the post.
Patterns & Research
The pattern I used is style No.2 Ladies’ and Misses’ Sweater (Pg. 167-168) from the book Fancy and Practical Knitting which dates to 1897 and can be found for free online here at Archive.org. My first challenge was deciphering the pattern; although knitting is much the same throughout the years, Victorian directions can be trickier to follow, particularly since some things that aren’t common knowledge now are assumed known.
The pattern instructs the use of 3 types of needle: no.12 steel, fine steel and ivory needles, which are not directly comparable to modern sizes. Fortunately this pattern and similar were published in many knitting pamphlets, and several pattern designers have created modern translations (so if you want to make this jumper the easy way, I highly recommend looking one up). Most of the designers state the gauge and needle sizes required on their pattern requirements, so after seeing what several patterns used and doing a quick swatch, I opted to use two sizes of needle (3.75mm & 2.75mm) since both of these worked with the diameter of my handspun yarn. Where the pattern mentioned No.12’s I used the 3.75mm and the 2.75mm were used in the place of the ivory and fine steel.
My yarn selection wasn’t particularly considered, the Clun Forest I’d started spinning that year (thin and chain plied with the intent of weaving it) was sitting next to me when I decided to swatch and happened to be the right gauge. Unsure how much yarn this project would use, I also had two fleeces worth of it, so I knew I wouldn’t run out. In retrospect the chain ply made it easy for me to spin small amounts while I was knitting the jumper and also gave the fabric a bit more structure than if I’d used a drapey yarn, so I’m pleased I opted for this fleece.
Despite wanting to follow the pattern closely for historical accuracy, I decided to knit the jumper on circular needles in the round up until the armscye instead of flat like the pattern instructed. There were several reasons behind the decision, firstly I wanted to be able to try the jumper on while I was knitting to check it fitted rather than reaching the end and having to start again (Ankany who used the same pattern on Youtube ran into fit issues), I also wanted to avoid bulky seams and didn’t want to injure my wrists holding more and more weight on straight needles. To account for this I wrote down the original pattern line by line so it read as a series of clear steps, but included both sides as if it were on circular needles. I also noted the number of stitches for each line and how many inches the jumper was at each part (the pattern states 8 sts per inch). I could then do the following:
Work out the proportions of the original pattern to compare against my own – there is a 5″ difference between the waist and hip measurement which matched my proportions exactly, so I didn’t need to edit the number of increase/decrease sts.
Re-write the pattern adding an extra 8 sts for every inch increase I needed to match my measurements. I also included the number of stitches that should be on my needles at each line so I could easily check I hadn’t gone wrong as I knitted.
Knitting
After checking my pattern thoroughly and comparing it against the original I finally cast on, placing a marker at the start and halfway point between back and front of the jumper and began to knit. Since this is knit in 1×1 rib with a few rows of ‘fancy’ basketweave pattern I didn’t have to change which stitches I was using for the circulars, just to be aware of it when it came to the decreases. Since this was my first big project and I really struggle to pick up rows with the stitches in the right direction after ripping work back, I decided to place several ‘lifelines’ as I knitted each section. These were annoying to extract and I didn’t end up needing to undo anything, but I’m so glad I had them there.
I made quite good progress reaching the underarm around May 2022 and then wondered how I was going to split the jumper so it was back to being knit in two halves. Not wanting to get it wrong, I put the jumper aside for around 6 months before having the embarrassing realisation that I didn’t have to take it off the needles at all and could just knit back and forth on one side of the jumper until the cast off edge and then join the yarn to work on the other side as I had a long cable! After that I was able to carry on following the pattern as per the original, constructing buttonholes at the front as directed.
*As a side note to anyone wanting to make their own, I have realised that the one thing I didn’t check was the proportions of the neck. When decreasing for the neck, the pattern instructs you to ‘cast off 14 sts, knit to within 14 sts and cast off those 14sts’. This means the extra width I added to the jumper overall was translated to the neck, making it slightly wider than the pattern illustration shows. Since my fabric is quite stiff it doesn’t make much difference and looks nice aesthetically, but a drapey yarn might have struggled to hold up the voluminous sleeves.
After casting off the main body, I began the first sleeve. The sleeves are knit from the top down and get sewn in with pleats, so I knitted it flat and then joined to knit in the round after the first 4 rows of fancy pattern, decreasing from a 50″ to 14″ cable and finally to dpns throughout. The sleeve looked odd at this stage and I thought I’d gone horribly wrong, but kept going and when I tried the sleeve on, I realised the decreases become the structural part of the sleeve puff. Then it was time for sleeve number 2, which seemed to take much longer to knit (probably because I kept running out of yarn and had to card and spin some more).
Assembly
After knitting the jumper in the round, assembly was quite easy, if time consuming as I kept trying it on to make sure everything was positioned correctly. I sewed buttons to the back portion as directed where they overlap, however the pattern states that where the collar turns the buttons should be sewn to the back of the jumper so they show when it’s folded. With the buttonholes on one side of the collar this doesn’t logically work, but I found it was possible to overlap the buttonholes to correspond to the buttons sewn as the pattern directs if there is a twist in the fabric (it’s more clearly shown in the video below). I’m not sure if this is what the pattern is instructing, but I can’t figure out any other way using only the amount of buttons they call for (and for all of them to be functional), the example in the MET museum also looks like it could have a twist halfway too.
After sewing on all 16 buttons I pinned in the sleeves, adding box pleats as directed. I made slightly fewer pleats since my fabric was stiffer and I have never before sewn a such as thick fabric (often 4-5 layers!). Thankfully it was knitted so my needle didn’t have much problem passing through and securing everything with a strong backstitch. I then wove in all the ends and the project was finally finished…
My JumperJumper at the MET Museum
I didn’t keep track of my yarn yardage, but did attempt to time roughly how long it took me (although I wasn’t strict about this). I spent approximately 207 hours knitting, while carding, spinning & plying took a further 20 hours (though this is more difficult to be exact about since I didn’t time everything and used both hand and drum carding). Rounding up to account for skirting, washing and assembly, the whole project took me a minimum of 230 hours to make.
Overall I’m really pleased with how this came out, despite it taking so long. Though I’ve done a lot of knitting on the blog, it’s not my strongest fibrecraft (but I do like a challenge!), so for a first jumper I’m pleased. There are things that I would do differently (spinning all my yarn at the same time so it’s the same shade of fleece and easier to keep the same size for example), but I love how warm and comfortable it is and the sleeves are incredibly fun! I’m much less intimidated by large knitting projects now and I’ve got better at translating knitting patterns on paper before I start knitting.
As 2023 draws to a close, I want to thank all my readers for their support over the past year. It’s been busy; I went to my first in person yarn festival, completed another Tour de Fleece, participated in Wovember on both my blog and Instagram (for which I was very lucky to win some wonderful goodies from 5 sisters farm in the prize draw), experimented with filming some of my spinning and caught up on writing some long awaited blog posts.
I’ll be back in 2024 with more fibre adventures, I’m hoping to finish my long standing Victorian jumper project, and begin some other projects that have been on my list for some time. Working with fibre from scratch is a slow process, so thank you all for your patience while I tackle big projects. I’m also keen to hear from you – are there any blog posts you’ve particularly enjoyed and would like to see more of, or things that you would like me to explore? I’m always open to suggestions – let me know in the comments!
In the meantime, I wish you all a merry festive season. See you in the new year!
Happy Wovember! This year I’m travelling back in time to explore the lasting impact wool has had on our culture. I’ll be exploring various magical and mythological stories and imagery to see what links them to wool and if there was any truth in these tales.
Ancient Magic
The ancient Greeks were not the only ones to worship beings of fate; The Norns were the old Norse equivalent to the Moirai and could weave a person’s destiny. Norse women could also practice Seidr, a type of magic often using a symbolic distaff to bring about a change of fate for good or evil1. Women who practiced this magic would have been highly respected, but also probably feared (any men practicing Seidr were ridiculed as the practice was seen as ‘unmanly’). Archaeological evidence shows that drop spindles were often buried with their owners, perhaps to occupy them in the afterlife, or perhaps because these tools were so important, both practically and spiritually. Even today, the intent with which something is done is considered important in everything from modern witchcraft to mindfulness. As crafters we make with intent, whether this is to improve our skillset, explore something new, or simply to unwind.
Gatherings of Witches
In the early 20th century, household witches in Finland were reported to cut wool from neighbours’ sheep to weave invisibility cloaks and bring about bad luck2. This may therefore have linked the practice of witchcraft to those who could spin. The beginning of an account from an American periodical in 1880 describes a gathering of witches at their ‘headquarters’ where the author is greeted by a woman spinning3. This description is reminiscent of the spinning bees of the 18th century in the American Colonies.
Women would gather and chat while they spun in order to boycott buying goods from Britain4; it was a way for women to have political expression and would have been an ideal place to gossip and share knowledge (through spinning songs for example). Around the world, groups of spinners through the ages would bring their work together to save lighting and keep each other company. Spinning bees were places predominantly occupied by women and were often portrayed as being unruly gatherings (paintings portraying spinning bees are filled with innuendos). Whether this was invented by those who disapproved of women having a space of their own, or had a ring of truth, I cannot say, but it is not out of the question for spinning bees to have subsequently been associated with witchcraft.
Though the link between wool and witchcraft has historically had negative connotations, many practices remain today. There is a wonderful global community of spinners, weavers, and fibre artists all teaching and keeping each other company, and we value items that have taken time, skill, and energy to create. We marvel at the beautiful creations of others and the process of creating itself. Though it is doubtful that spinning and weaving can magically change another’s fate, they are expressive and mindful crafts that bring people and ideas together and I think perhaps that there is a magic in that.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this tumble down the rabbit hole into the weird and wonderful cultural history of wool. I have tried to include a variety of different stories focussed on magic and myth, but there is much more, so if any of this has piqued your interest then I heartily encourage you to look into this further – I had a lot of fun researching the more unusual wool history to write these posts.
As we reach the end of Wovember it only remains for me to encourage you to use wool, check your labels for fibre content and visit Team Wovember or Love Wovember for lots more information. I will be taking a break from posting in December while I catch up on projects and making gifts, but I will return in the new year hopefully with some new finished projects.
Happy Crafting!
Wovember posts from previous years can be found below:
Stark, L. (2018) ‘Narrative and the social dynamics of magical harm in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Finland’, in W. De Blécourt and O. Davies (eds) Witchcraft Continued. Manchester University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526137975.00008. ↩︎
Happy Wovember! This year I’m travelling back in time to explore the lasting impact wool has had on our culture. I’ll be exploring various magical and mythological stories and imagery to see what links them to wool and if there was any truth in these tales.
Fairy Tales & Folklore
Many traditional children’s tales make reference to spinning and weaving; Rumpelstiltskin spinning straw into gold (likely a reference to flax spinning) and Sleeping Beauty being pricked with a flax splinter originally, but more traditionally a spindle (though I take issue with Disney portraying her pricking her finger on the distaff of a wheel that would never have had a spindle, but that’s a discussion for another time!). In both these tales the spinners are tricksy beings bringing the heroine great distress (and perhaps they also give a safety warning about working with spinning equipment), but there are tales of more benevolent creatures.
In Scottish folklore the fairy Habetrot agrees to spin flax into yarn on behalf of a girl who prefers exploring to sitting with a distaff and is distressed that she will never find a husband unless she can spin. In the tale Habetrot and her friends not only spin the yarn for her, attracting the prince who marries her, but also ensure that she will never have to spin again (Habetrot and her fellow spinners are described as having misshapen lips from constantly moistening their fingers; upon seeing this the prince declares that his new wife should never spin again lest the same fate befall her)1. The young girl suffers no repercussions the prince leaves his estates fleeces by Habetrot’s dell to be turned into yarn.
Children & Wool
It is odd that so many fairy tales seemed to discourage spinning in a time when children, particularly young girls would have been expected and encouraged to learn how to spin, since, as discussed in the Fate & Destiny post, it was one of few ways women could have some financial independence. The word ‘fairy’ is thought to have originated from the old French translation of the Latin word for Fates, since it was believed that much like the Moirai, fairies could change a person’s destiny for good or evil through their actions. This is interesting, since the ability to spin well could literally change a person’s destiny by earning them a wage, so although fairy tales are more extreme examples of a change of fate, they do still illustrate the point.
Children would be encouraged to help collect and process wool and would learn skills from a young age. Up until the establishment of elementary education in 1880, girls from working class backgrounds were encouraged to knit woollen garments to supplement the family finances and prevent them from being idle (particularly if they were in the workhouse). Informal schools were set up to teach, and some accomplished knitters were younger than five years old2! Though the gender bias associated with wool was restricting, working class women at the time had very few rights and little education, so learning a skill from a young age meant they would be more likely to find legitimate paid work. Being able to produce your own clothing allowed you to be more self-sufficient and less reliant on others, so perhaps the fairy tales don’t simply illustrate how spinning or magic could suddenly improve your lot, rather they remind children that if they patiently practice a craft, they won’t have to rely on others or make dodgy deals with fey creatures to prove a claim to a talent they never had.
If there are any other good fairy tales involving fibre crafts that I should hear about, let me know in the comments below. Next week I’ll be exploring some of the links between wool and witchcraft.
Wovember posts from previous years can be found below:
Happy Wovember! This year I’m travelling back in time to explore the lasting impact wool has had on our culture. I’ll be exploring various magical and mythological stories and imagery to see what links them to wool and if there was any truth in these tales.
The Moirai
The Moirai or ‘fates’ are three ancient Greek goddesses who were responsible for deciding the destiny and lifespan of mortals. Represented as three women (sometimes young and beautiful, sometimes old and ugly) each was responsible for a different task of apportioning life. Clotho was the spinner, often pictured with a distaff and spindle for spinning the thread of life; Lachesis was the allotter who used a measuring stick to measure the length of the life and Atropos was the ‘inflexible’, responsible for rendering the decision unchangeable by cutting the thread with her shears. The fates decision could not be changed even by Zeus1, arguably making them the most powerful figures in Greek mythology. The one individual said to have outwitted them met a swift and sudden end, so it is unsurprising that they are often portrayed as the villains.
The Power of Spinning
The image of the fates using spindle, stick and shears has endured throughout the years and is interesting to unpick. It is curious that such powerful beings were given such commonplace tools, after all, spinning would have been part of the daily chores at the time. However, wool had significant value; sheep were a source of nutrition, but the wool they produced could be turned into cloth and sold or traded, allowing individuals to make and afford basic necessities. Despite being a common resource wool was a necessity; the humble drop spindle would lay the foundations for the industrial revolution many years later, the quality of a fleece for spinning would depend on the shearing and a greater yardage would determine the price. So, although ordinary, the Moirai’s tools hold enormous potential, which seems apt considering their function as allotters of destiny.
Spinning was a task performed nearly exclusively by women2. It required very little equipment and was portable; distaffs could be secured in a belt allowing women to spin while walking, cooking, or caring for children. Spinning was not financially lucrative, it provided women with a meagre wage even up until the industrial revolution3, but would have given them some limited financial independence. Weaving was a practice dominated by men, arguably because it was a form of self-expression that women were not often entitled to4 since stories could be woven into fabric (which reminds me of the poem ‘Dangerous Coats‘ by Sharon Owens). Spinning was therefore both a source of independence, but also repression, so it is interesting that such powerful beings should be portrayed as lowly spinners.
One possible reason for this is the romanticisation of spinning in art. An internet search of paintings depicting spinsters provides multiple images of women elegantly (and impractically) draped at a wheel, delicately turning fibre into thread. The Moirai are no exception to this; though often cast as the villains, many sculptures and paintings depict them gracefully, one major difference being that the Moirai are more realistically poised to spin. Perhaps this distinction is meant to make them appear less feminine than other mortal muses, highlighting their independence and immortality.
Though the Moirai are mythical beings, their depiction provides an insight into the importance of wool to everyday life and the role of women in textile production at the time. The thread of life symbolising the livelihood created by wool and the Moirai representing the women fated to spin but laying the first seeds of their independence.
If I’ve missed out anything important feel free to let me know in the comments below. Next week I’ll be exploring some wool related fairy tales.
Wovember posts from previous years can be found below:
Humphries, J. and Schneider, B. (2019) ‘Spinning the industrial revolution: SPINNING THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION’, The Economic History Review, 72(1), pp. 126–155. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.12693. ↩︎
Pantelia, M.C. (1993) ‘Spinning and Weaving: Ideas of Domestic Order in Homer’, The American Journal of Philology, 114(4), p. 493. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/295422. ↩︎
Loose Ends 