Spanish spinning

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 A year or so ago, I picked up a Basque drop spindle.  I sat down this weekend to see if I could manage to figure out the spinning technique needed.

Turns out I can spin it just fine but definitely need to work on the proper way to wind the fiber.  This is undyed Merino wool.  I'll post more pictures once I spin the rest and ply it.


When I decided to follow the trail of finding more info about the Basque spindle, I came across this: The World of Spindles by Beatrix Nutz, a paper I found on Academia.edu, was published in 2025.  https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/122677264/The_World_of_Spindles-libre.pdf?1746555633=&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B+filename%3DThe_World_of_Spindles.pdf&Expires=1759187775&Signature=VhZH6mK4u7TU0U53d8oAbz31kz0qQL9nLUCufdHExjcwt0rps6myrcNC58WNbHlE2fylYFq95nTS7N6A4UWBSCfnH2opqV-vqDt0lphmxUU~6xJ0YFkGuENMFIA43aCc5n5DZtu2F~PlY-JL9-Vh3yAMj-trEi8TY9UjgffEGI2Guu0b5Gpurw1Tk1DpsnqBg82LPqxHDf-BuSA~hHaaxTOrZvvNm1LOg63KRCvX6A7ZWo-EHayZC1ipY8oUrWjx~kyVGB~N~7jDp~HjoUty-QRVhE3KtX6V0tAuZ9kB31pkJPS1qdiSkVAkiHnYdadXmyw~kV0aNjWrNENySSte2w__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA

There’s an amazing amount of research in this paper, including pictures of original spindles, photographs and postcards from the 19th and 20th centuries.  Unfortunately, it’s outside the timespan of SCA documentation, but still very interesting to read.

One point of interest that caught me off guard was how similar the spindles are between the Basque, Inner Mongolia and the Northern Chinese Province.  The Mongolian/Chinese Province spindles are documented to be for rope creation versus yarn/thread production.

So now I want to know just how similar are they?  Did the Mongolians ever spin fine enough to do embroidery or knitting?  Did the Basque people ever use the spindle to make rope?

And now that I've worked out how to spin on it, what do I do with it?  Should I try my hand at Basque style embroidery?  I haven't found any documentation of knit Basque items yet but am still looking.

I have however found the Textile Research Centre in Leiden, Netherlands and the San Telmo Museoa in Spain that focuses on the Basque region.  The San Telmo Museoa has multiple pieces of embroidery done almost as cross stitch that is certainly in my wheelhouse to recreate.  This may be a fascinating side trip.


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