Media Category: issue

Wooden bobbin and flyer wheel with a single treadle, marked “E L. St. Frs.”

Metal treadle with mark “E L. St. Frs,” a five-petal flower, a five pointed star, equilateral triangle, and free-form geometric shape cut into the metal.

Horizontal wheel by Alan Brenkley. Wooden bobbin and flyer wheel, single treadle. Drive wheel supports are attached to the mother-of-all by side rails. The frame holding the drive wheel supports is turned wood.

Main wheel type 3; a wooden and metal tabletop wheel. Drive wheel position is perpendicular to the plane of the table when the wheel is in use. Metal drive wheel has teeth and is part of a cog mechanism with the spindle.

Bryce wheel; a wooden and metal tabletop wheel. Drive wheel position is perpendicular to the plane of the table when the wheel is in use.

Model of track wheel. The spindle head on a cart or trolley travels along a track, by means of cords attached to drive wheel and treadle.

Upright double-flyer Swiss flax wheel. Wooden wheel, single treadle, with drive wheel parallel to treadle.

Illustration from an early 20th-century postcard for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “The Courtship of Miles Standish.” A woman, dressed in an early 20th-century rendition of 17th-century clothing, wears a dress and a cloth cap. She is seated on a straight-backed chair or bench and is spinning on an upright double flyer wheel. A man, also in period dress, bareheaded, leans towards her.

Double-flyer Swiss upright flax wheel. Wooden wheel, single treadle, drive wheel parallel to treadle.

Restored Scandinavian wheel. Wooden three-legged wheel, single treadle, bobbin and flyer.

Normandy wheel #1. Short-legged great wheel with spindle. Extensive decorative turning on drive wheel spokes.

Normandy wheel #2. Short-legged bobbin-and-flyer great wheel from Normandy with decorative turning on drive wheel spokes.

Wool bows from: Karelia (top);
northern Russia (middle);
Turkestan (bottom). Triangular tools with variations.

Mark “F N Vezina, Vercheres” on the upper side of the wheel table, near the metal tilt-tension device.

Mark “J O” on the end of the table, below the mother-of-all.

Wooden wheel marked “Louis Bisson.” Single treadle, bobbin and flyer, with tilt tension.

Tow wheel, designed for spinning “tow,” the leftover fibers from hackling flax. Wooden wheel with a single treadle. Treadle is parallel to the table and is about the same length as the table. The drive wheel is perpendicular to the table and the treadle.

Bonnie’s upright wheel with some unusual features. Simple wooden wheel, single treadle, single drive wheel is perpendicular to the treadle.

Florence’s upright wheel, likely from the Tirol area of Europe. Single treadle wooden wheel with ornamental turning. Single drive wheel which is parallel to the treadle.

Karelian spinning wheel; a Finnish spinning wheel with a double rim. Horizontal structure, bobbin and flyer wheel with single treadle.

Detail of two accelerating wheels that are part of a three-stage pulley system on a great wheel.

The Aurora Colony wheel was designed by Jacob Shaw, who held an early patent for this moving-spindle wheel which pivots from the floor

Child’s great wheel next to full-size great wheel.

Holcomb’s direct drive #1. A variation of a spindle head for a great wheel. Short, turned-wood spindle.

Holcomb’s direct drive #2. A variation of a spindle head for a great wheel. Long metal spindle housed in an open, blocky support structure.

Menard’s direct drive from the front. A variation in spindle head for a great wheel that may or may not be direct drive. Long metal spindle housed in a narrow rectangular wood block.

One-of-a-kind from New York State. Horizontal wheel, single treadle, bobbin and flyer, unusually narrow table.

One-of-a-kind from Australia. Horizontal wheel, single treadle, bobbin and flyer.

One-of-a-kind from England. Green wheel with two treadles and two drive wheels, arranged horizontally.

Sue’s restored cast-iron spinning wheel. Single treadle bobbin and flyer wheel. Red-painted cast-iron drive wheel with S-curve spokes, black cast-iron frame.

Two wheels by Earl Oman, one vertical and one horizontal, both wooden single-treadle bobbin and flyer.

Vertical single-flyer spinning wheel. Although vertical wheels are not a common structure among early American spinning wheels, the turnings and decorative features resemble those of known early wheel makers from Connecticut.

Rear view – Nancy’s wheel. Spinning wheel showing a split-table structure that originated in Sweden.

Guy Wage spinning wheel. Three-legged, single treadle wheel with a hinged-table structure found only in New Zealand.

Shaker umbrella swifts; six wooden umbrella swifts, all different sizes, arranged by height.