What is a spindle and distaff?
Spinning consists of the twisting together of drawn-out strands of fibers to form yarn. A distaff is designed to hold the unspun fibers, meanwhile a spindle is a straight spike, usually made from wood, onto which the fiber is being spun. The most commonly used fibers in Europe were wool and flax.
What were spindles used for?
A spindle is a straight spike usually made from wood used for spinning, twisting fibers such as wool, flax, hemp, cotton into yarn.
When was the distaff invented?
Researchers differ as to when exactly distaffs first appeared in Russia and when they began to be decorated: museums started collecting household items only in the 19th century. The oldest surviving distaff is in the collection of the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum, for example, and dates to the late 18th century.
What is a wrist distaff?
A wrist distaff is a unique aid for a spinner who works with roving rather than rolags. Rolags are short lengths of hand carded fiber and don’t require much support during spinning, but roving, which is prepared on a drum carder or commercial carding machine, comes in long strips.
How old are spindle whorls?
See below for details, but in general it seems that lead whorls make up a small proportion of the whorls in use from the 10th to at least the 14th century, c. 900-1400 AD.
When were drop spindles used?
The drop spindle has been documented back to the 1st century A.D. In Middle Eastern archeological sites, whorls from drop spindles have been dated back to 5000 B.C. No spindles have been excavated because they were usually made from wood that biodegraded over time.
What does the spindle symbolize?
The spindle set in the spindle whorl is symbolic of coitus, and the thread, as it winds around the spindle, symbolizes the growing fetus, the woman becoming big with child … Nevertheless, there are also ornamented spindle whorls.
What was a distaff used for?
Distaff, Device used in hand spinning in which individual fibres are drawn out of a mass of prepared fibres held on a stick (the distaff), twisted together to form a continuous strand, and wound on a second stick (the spindle). It is most often used for making linen; wool does not require a distaff (see carding).
What does distaff mean in the Bible?
1a : a staff for holding the flax, tow, or wool in spinning. b : woman’s work or domain. 2 : the female branch or side of a family.
Why was Mary spinning a distaff in medieval times?
In this 15th-century drawing from Germany, Mary is spinning from a distaff, Joseph is doing woodworking, and the baby Jesus is winding thread off a spindle onto a niddy noddy. Perhaps this was a task often given to children during this time. Distaves often seem to have been turned into weapons in medieval art.
What did spindles look like in medieval times?
Medieval age spindles were not like the drop spindles most of us use today which have large whorls glued onto the shaft. A medieval spindle typically had a very small, light, removable whorl, usually at the bottom of the shaft, that was made of clay, bone, stone, or lead.
How does a woman spin a distaff shaft?
The fibre is tied on at one end and the other end is stuck through your belt behind your waist. When you cradle the distaff shaft in the crook of your elbow, it leaves both hands free to either spin or do other tasks. If you need to stop spinning you can just stick the spindle into the fibre.
What was a distaff used for in medieval art?
Distaves often seem to have been turned into weapons in medieval art. In this drollerie from The Smithfield Decretals, Reynard the Fox, a popular trickster in medieval stories, has stolen a women’s goose, and she’s chasing after him with her distaff.
