Habetrot

Jeune Tricoteuse - Young Knitter

 
William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825 - 1905) French painter

Bouguereau painted several work of girls and young women engaged in spinning, knitting, and shepherding.  He had a wonderful way with light and shadow and skin. The detail is exquisite -- you can feel the difference in the textures of her blouse, scarf, skirt, apron, and knitting, all  of which contrast with the soft, smooth skin of her luminescent hands.  And behind all that texture is the smooth, hard stone wall.                                                   (click for big)

Bwahahahaaaaaa!

I wonder what it is that she thinks is so funny.

(click to biggify)

Peruvian Hilandera

The eternal advantage of hand spindles over spinning wheels is their portability. Here, a woman with a baby on her back spins with her puscha as she walks.

(click for big)

Here is a fabulous video, with music soundtrack, of women in the High Andes making their spindles dance.  It's four and a half minutes long, so be prepared for a wait if you don't have a high-speed connection.  But I promise, it will be worth it.

The double drafting technique of the hilanderas is interesting--first attenuate a length of fiber, without twist, to not much larger than the finished yarn, wrap the length around the fiber hand, then draft again while adding twist.

 

Let Us Not Forget. . .

. . .the shepherds who tend the lovely sheeps.

This fellow is in Cappadocia , which is a region in Anatolia , a part of Turkey.  The well-worn traditional cape he is wearing is felt made from his sheep's wool and juxtaposes nicely with his red wellies.  I wish I could hear what he's playing on his flute. 

Anatolia is the source of the Anatolian Shepherd Dog, one of the livestock guardian dog breeds.  But that will be the subject of another post.

Here's another Anatolian shepherd with his dog:

Update on Millet Spinner

Ancient flyer.  By weird coincidence, yesterday I came across images of a French spinning wheel that has a flyer setup very similar to that shown on the Millet painting in my August 13 entry, the flyer that I said I had never seen before.  Take a look:

The solid piece of wood supporting the spindle and whorl has been replaced by maidens, but otherwise the arrangement is the same--the flyer and bobbin appear to have been substituted for the earlier spindle without redesigning the whorl set-up.

Knitting through Time and Space

Norway Knitter
19th Century

Let Us Not Forget. . .

. . .the lovely sheeps.

Millet Spinner

Jean-François Millet 
(French, 1814-1875)  (more) and (more)  

Millet is probably my favorite painter.  Coming from a rural background, himself, he painted regular country people going about their everyday occupations.  You will be seeing more from Millet here in the future.

Here we see a young spinner (accompanied by the requisite spinner's cat) working comfortably on a very interesting wheel.  The model for the painting was probably Millet's wife, as he often used her to model for his works.  In the background we get a glimpse of the spinner's surroundings--a basket on the floor, plates, dishes, and utensils in cupboards on the walls.

This spinning wheel straddles that revolutionary line between the ancient hand-driven spindle wheel and the modern treadle-driven flyer wheel.

(As always, click on the image for a larger view.)

Note that there is no treadle on the spinning wheel; she is working the wheel with her right hand on a crank attached to the axle of the drive wheel.  The length of the fiber on the short distaff suggests wool, but the small metal cup near her hand looks to be a water cup as used for spinning flax.  My guess is that she used the wheel for both wool and flax spinning.  Note, too the fancy turnings on the wheel spokes and the flat rim of the drive wheel.

The arrangement of the flyer is especially interesting.  Rather than being mounted on maidens on a mother-of-all, it is attached to what appears to be a spindle head from an earlier style spindle wheel.  This is the only time I have seen a depiction of a flyer head like this, but I trust Millet to have painted it accurately.          

Dutch Knitter 1928

For TMW

Traditional Icelandic Farmstead Home

Addendum:  I have been told that I should include some commentary, and since I respect those who said so, I will comply. 

The style of wheel that you see is the traditional castle-style spinning wheel.  The box you see beyond the wheel is a basket for holding the wool that the man is carding to prepare it for spinning.  The dog on the floor is an Iceland Dog, a combination sheep herding dog and family dog.  The people are sitting on their beds which are built into the walls.  Everything in the space is compact, efficient, and well thought out.  There was no space to waste.

The room that we see is the second floor of the old-style Iceland farm house.  The family lived mostly in this one small room through the many winter months.  The kitchen was on the ground floor below.  Since heating fuel was almost non-existent--no trees, and no fossil fuels, people kept to small spaces in the cold months.  The animals, sheep, cattle, goats, and horses, lived in connected buildings, and their body heat would help keep the people warm.

By sheer coincidence, Ms. TMW has just posted about Iceland sheep fibers for spinning.  Take a look at Too Much Wool .