This is something you don't see any more but I remember standing with my arms held wide holding taut a skein of wall while my nana or mother wound a ball of wool. This is uncle Gibson Phelan doing the same in the 1920s. I was reminded of this photo when I saw the theme photo for this week's
Sepia Saturday - a lady sewing or mending a flag.
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| Gibson Phelan assists in the winding of the wool. |
Hand crafts are changing or disappearing. My weekly quilting group members are crafting quilts but none of us make quilts because they are an essential part of our home bedding. My father makes wooden bowls, chairs and tables but he does it because he enjoys the process - not because we need the items. None of his children or grandchildren know how to work the wood. My daughters enjoy growing vegetables but they could easily buy them at their local market or store. My sister-in-law preserves fruit even though she can afford to buy fruit throughout the year (even out-of-season fruit flown in from all over the world). My friend makes her own clothes even though there are cheaper items available in the stores - and my own sewing machine doesn't get used anywhere near as much as it used to even though I still have the skills. My step-mother knits jumpers from new and recycled wool and donates them to a charity. I knit rarely and my daughters not at all. My husband's grandmother always won prizes whenever she entered the cooking sections at the local shows - if we want to use puff pastry in a recipe we head to our freezer whereas she made it from scratch.
And this photo reminds me of a time when wool arrived in large skeins that had to be rolled into smaller balls before the actual knitting could be started. I searched YouTube for a little video of the process but failed. There are plenty of videos involving mechanical ways of holding the skeins but none showing a person doing the job. Surprising really because it such a friendly way of doing it, but maybe we're all leading such busy lives it's hard to find a friend with the time to just sit and chat while they hold their arms wide open. I wonder if you can even buy a skein of wool now.
I searched Google images and Australian newspapers online at
Trove to see what else I could find about winding balls off the skein or hank of wool. I found a cartoon and several humerous items. I hadn't thought of the process as a 'romantic dance' until I read the report below and the snippet from the story in the last item.
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| Australian Womens Weekly 15 June 1955 |
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| Albury Banner and Wodonga Express 29 Dec 1933 |
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| Australian Womens Weekly 27 Apr 1940 |
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| Harold Harvey's painting 'Winding the Wool' |
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| The Daily News (Perth), 9 June 1905 |
