Sat 20 Jun 2009
Posted by Tropical Twister under Articles , My Spinning Wheels , Weaving
1 Comment
This antique yarn winder was “won” on eBay and shipped from Holland. It was purchased knowing the “clock” didn’t work. BUT, with beeswax and two nylon bushings and a lot of fiddling, I got it working. When the wheel is turned to wind on the yarn to create a skein, it turns a wood gear which run the “clock”, the hand winds to keep track of the length of yarn. I must admit that even with my fiddling, it doesn’t work flawlessly but my plan is to display the winder when I use the antique flax wheel for demos. I expect I will continue to use my metal and plastic skein winder for real work until my new wood one arrives from Glimarka. Several views of the yarn winder below:
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My newest band is from heavy, strong, somewhat coarse rug wool:
Tropical Twister
My mother had a much simpler clockenhen when I was growing up — no ‘clock’. It just clicked and you had to count the clicks yourself. I have wondered for years what the English word was, but could never find it. Not even Google knows ‘clockenhen.’
How disappointing to find out it is merely called a ‘yarn winder’ in English!
But at least I could show this picture to explain to my friend what I was talking about.