Spinning Wheel

A textile instrument composed of a leveled bench, rotating around a standard, and a spinning head consisting of another vertical standard connected at its bottom half to a spindle. The drive wheel and the spindle are typically joined by a now-missing drive band. The spinning wheel was essential for spinning thread into spools, when previously, the spinning process was completely manual and painstaking, requiring the teasing of lumps of fibers then twisting them into strings around spindles. With the introduction of the wheel, the spindle is still used, but the twisting process is automated, with the size of the wheel controlling the amount of twist wanted. This wheel, a local variant of the Great Wheel type, was free-moving and spun by hand. The thread is gathered when the spinner spins the drive wheel with one hand and draws the fiber supply back with the other.