Sheep's Clothing Spinning

My mother brought be to bring your child to work day. Today, there is a class on spinning and boy do I pity women. Imagine living in a barn and attaching a spare wagon wheel on the wall and using it to spin really fine yarn and if you want it thicker, spinning it again and again and again. Watching Brian, I realize that making yarn and thread for clothes, sails and rope is a big pain to women over the many years. In Columbus's day, the drop spindle were mostly used by women so they can put it down and tend to children, food and their men. On the other hand, men who spun used production wheels, like the great wheel, to spin for profit, since that's all they had to worry about. Watching both techniques, it takes a long time to make a decent amount of thread. How many shirts could your mother make using these techniques? Depends on the skill of the women, the country she lived in, the avalibility of fibers to spin, and countless other factors. Most women had half a dozen children,so making clothes from scratch would be highly impratical. Countries had different traditions on who would spin the yarn and thread and how it was done. Different countries also raised different animals and plantss. Plant fibers like flax, thisle, cotton, hemp, corn, seacell, and bamboo have been used throughout the centuries in the places they naturally grown in. Anything with hair has been woven as well like buffalo, goat, dog, sheep, and alpaca are still used today. Human hair isn't as much because it doesn't spin well, unless combined with something else. Silk is another type of animal fiber. Today, we mostly use synthetic fibers like nylon, polyester,and rayon, simply because it is cheaper to produce. Knitting techniques haven't changed much, since there's only so much you can do with thread and yarn. I don't know about you, but I really don't have time to make the yarn for my looming and to use it. I invite people to look at all the different spinning wheels that look ancient and are still reproduced today. I'm sitting here looking at some and wondering why on earth women bothered to stop using solid peices of animal hides and fur. No wonder spinning wheels were evil objects in Sleeping Beauty.