More museum examples

On request from Meg I continued looking in the museum catalogue.
And I found two more "interesting" descriptions:

Weaving reed

Material: Wood, Textile
Technique: Knotted
Function: Dividing the warp

The [weaving] reed sits near the cloth beams [yes, plural - my note] in a weaving loom, directly in front of the shafts. It's function is to divide the threads.
The rectangular reeds consist of a wooden frame, into which thin blades of wood (in one instance metal) are mounted with a textile band.


Weaving shuttle

Material: wood
Technique: carpentered [my dictionary says "carpenter" is a verb, so it must be correct...?]
Function: weaving

Shuttle. A cloth consists of two thread systems, warp and weft. The warp is tensioned during weaving and is crossed at right angles by the weft. With the help of the shuttle, the weft is inserted from side to side between the warp ends. The weft can go over and under the warp ends. With a treadle loom the lifting and lowering of the warp ends is done by the treadles. The shuttle is [quill-shaped?], with a hole in which a dowel is fixed. The weft is fastened around the dowel. One [of the shuttles] is patterned in two places.


In all fairness: at Murberget, they have elected to transcribe the text in the old paper catalogue. These two artefacts have no pictures, but in many instances they show the handwritten paper entry, often from the 1920-1940ies. Here is one example.
(I have often marvelled at what the museum generalists came up with a hundred years ago... but that is another story.)

So, Murberget uses the original texts/descriptions - most other museums do not. I remember looking in the Nordiska museets paper catalogue, and... let me say I can understand why they do not transcribe indiscriminately.

However, what is interesting about yesterday's post is that it is written after 1991. As I recall, there were several books about spinning and spinning wheels out by then, even written by Swedish authors... And even generalists should be able to read?

Now, to cheer us all up, a picture:

The picture comes from here.

Be sure to click the pic to biggify!

The, I don't know, dangers, maybe? of museum catalogues...

The only thing I did was to make another spinning wheel search, this time on the site of Murbergets museum.
After some dead tries I finally found out how to search the whole site, and got some 150 hits.
Several were not spinning wheels (even though they were so tagged), and most wheels had no pictures.

As I was clicking through the detail pages, I came across this text.
Due to the extraordinary text, I felt I had to let you all know how a spinning wheel can be described (my translation, which probably can be re-written to something more fluent, but I think this captures the flavour of the original)(Swedish original below):

Material: Wood, Metal
Technique: Turned, Nailed
Function: To ply thread(s)

Monogram - Initials - Writing: IE Holm
Maker - Location - Affirmed: Teodor Bylund

[The] spinning wheel is used to make thread/yarn from textile material (wool/flax). The wheel itself makes the flyer move. The treadle makes the wheel go round.

The spinning wheel consists of several nicely turned wooden parts. The "table" has three legs, of which two are connected to a crosspiece which also houses the treadle. From the treadle there is a vertical shaft leading to an S-shaped iron. This is an axle, which goes through forks and wheel. The two forks have an upright each, everything fastens to the "table". The "table" is slanted. The flyer mountings are located behind the wheel. A bigger lump comes up and is penetrated by a horizontal stave, at the ends of which two pillars are mounted, the flyer sits between these. The distaff's mounting piece is located at the back end of the table. Newly turned (1991) by Teodor Bylund. The head of the distaff has its own number 13918. At the back end there is a knob for carrying. Drive band is missing. Marked "I E Holm".

(No, I have not used google translate, or any other translation software... it really (REALLY) says there is a bigger lump coming through the table, and that there is a carrying knob at the back end. Try google translate yourselves, if you don't believe me!)
It is a pity there is no picture - I would have liked to see this obviously very different MOA construction.
However, for those of you having trouble with lumps and forks, here are two annotated pictures (click for readability):

OK, IF you have used the auto-translate, read the text on the museum site instead! The auto-translate makes the original Swedish totally... strange.


Material: Trä, Metall
Teknik: Svarvat, Spikat
Funktion: Tvinna tråd

Monogram - Initialer - Påskrift: I E Holm
Tillverkare - Tillverkningsort - Säker: Teodor Bylund

Spinnrocken används för att göra tråd/garn av textilmaterial (ull/lin). Själva hjulet ser till att vingspindeln rör sig. Trampan sätter fart på hjulet.

Spinnrocken består av flera fint svarvade trädelar. "Bordet" har tre ben, varav två fäster nedtill i en tvärslå där också trampan sitter. Från trampan leder en vertikal axel till ett S-format järn. Detta är en axel, vilken löper genom gafflar och rockhjul. De två gafflarna har varsin stötta, alltsammans fäster i "bordet". "Bordet" är snedvinklat. Bakom hjulet sitter vingspindelns fästanordning. En större klump går upp och genomborras av en horisontell stav, i vilkens ändar två pelare fästs, vingspindeln sitter mellan dessa. Längst bak på bordet sitter rockhuvudets ställning. Nysvarvad (1991) av Teodor Bylund. Rockhuvudet eget nummer 13918. Längst bak en knopp att bära i. Drivbandet saknas. Märkt: "I E Holm".

A towel from IKEA

From time to time there are discussions about combining waffle weave (sometimes called "honeycomb", but not by me) with plain weave.

Often the discussions get heated, with arguments like "the different shrinkage rates makes them IMPOSSIBLE to combine". The correct answer is, of course, that one can do exactly as one wants - the weaving police may hinder one from getting such a combination into an exhibition, but the result will not (for instance) explode, or otherwise cause harm.
However, the results may cause disappointment.

The other day I found a towel from IKEA, combining a plain weave grid with squares of waffle weave. It has been in use for several years, washed many many times, and it still functions as a towel.

The plain weave bands pucker, and there is some tracking.

The yarns look like cotton 16/2, possibly low-twist 20/2, and after all shrinkage there are 18-20 ends/picks per centimetre.

It was very difficult to count ends per cell - try as I might, I got 7 ends/picks per repeat. (I did poke at it with a needle, but one does not always get popular if one starts to actually unravel other ppl's textiles...)

The most usual waffle weave has one more pick than it has ends. There are ways to reduce the number of picks, like the green and the red below.

I decided I had mis-counted. Even enlarging the pictures, I can't be sure - but looking at the towel, the longest floats look very much alike both warp- and weft-wise. (And it is impossible to decide which way is which, as there are hems on all sides.) Much enlarged:

So I added the plain weave to the 7 ends/8 picks repeat.

(I left an empty shaft and treadle to make it easier to see how the addition works)

This means one can duplicate an IKEA towel on just 6 shafts and 7 treadles. (Don't have more than 6 treadles? As it happens, one of the "waffle" treadles has one of the plain weave lifts:

And... should someone tell you it is IMPOSSIBLE to combine waffle and plain, you can always argue that what IKEA can do must be possible.