Media Category: issue

Squirrel-cage swift with three cages arranged vertically.

Flax wheel signed “IA.K 1776.” Three legged, medium wood wheel with sloped table, attached distaff, broken treadle, and missing bobbin and flyer.

Flax wheel signed “IH.K 1791.” Three-legged, dark wood bobbin and flyer wheel with sloped table.

Dutch all-in-one wheel back view. Wheel is designed to spin, wind skeins, and hold bobbins.

Free-standing “chapeau de gendarme” (or “policeman’s hat”) reel; four-armed winder with handle; winder and handle on opposite sides of a small box, which is, in turn, supported by wooden legs.

Susie’s wheel from the front; two drive wheels arranged horizontally; bobbin and flyer above. Double treadle.

Bill’s wheel with horizontal drive wheel and single treadle.

Great Wheel Signed “IH.K 1793.” Incomplete; three-legged frame, mother-of-all, and rear maiden are present; drive wheel and remainder of spindle head are missing.

5-armed winder signed “WILM KEIM GERMANTOWN”

Skinner wheel set up in the alternative arrangement as a bobbin winder or quiller, as described in the written description of the 1818 Skinner patent.

Shaker great wheel marked “A B”

Rear view of a Dutch all-in-one wheel with a horizontal arrangement

Betty Roberts’ first wheel, a single treadle castle wheel.

Betty Roberts’ 1980s model wheel. Bobbin and flyer wheel with vertical arrangement of two drive wheels with decorative sides; single treadle.

Line drawing of a three-legged, single treadle, bobbin and flyer wheel from 1928 brochure published by Industries Desjardins / Desjardins Industries, Saint André, Quebec.

Wheel marked Charles Regeimbal. Wooden single-treadle wheel with bobbin and flyer.

“Conn Fence” wheel; three-legged upright metal wheel with bobbin and flyer, metal treadle.

German wheel front view; metal upright wheel with metal bobbin and flyer, wooden treadle. Three extra bobbins are stored on the rear maiden.

Scandinavian wheel that Donna describes; treadle wheel with “an odd construction feature on the hub”

Upright wheel with rings on its spokes

Detail of spokes with rings

Wheel marked “J. FARNHAM Near Owego.” Four-legged wheel with single treadle, bobbin and flyer, distaff.

Wheel marked “J B;” four-legged wheel with single treadle, bobbin and flyer, distaff.

Great wheel signed “F. A. FARNHAM”

3-legged low wheel signed “J. FARNHAM”

Restored wheel signed “AZEL WILDER”

Mystery great wheel

Pierce great wheel

Parts of wheels to be assembled

Reassembled spinning wheels, one of which is marked “ALEXR McINTOSH 1858.”

Double-flyer wheel marked “ALEXR McINTOSH 1798”

Flat-rim spinning wheel [#9 of the thirteen flat-rim spinning wheels with a treadle discussed in this article]

Flat-rim wheel with Scotch tension [#4 of the thirteen flat-rim spinning wheels with a treadle discussed in this article]

Small Turkish wheel with Boxwood parts

Maker’s stencil on inside of drive-wheel rim of a row wheel