Hand Operated Reeling Wheel

In villages surrounding Hangzhou, Jiaxing and Huzhou most silk is reeled with a wooden treadled reeling wheel. The cocoons are first placed in boiling water and stirred with bamboo sticks to locate the end of the cocoons’ thread; with a number of these threads are run through an eyelet and then attached to the reeling wheel, which revolves when the treadle is activated.