18th century winding tools for yarn or thread
Various types of clock reels, swifts, and niddy-noddies (hand reels) used for winding wool yarn. On another page, I discuss winding tools from the 14th-16th centuries.
Additional Resources
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Ashford Sampler niddy noddy (also in jumbo size)
The textile tools of colonial homes
Find 18th century yarn-winding tools on eBay
Spinners and the Law: Regulating Yarn Standards in the English Worsted Industries, 1550-1800
From the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (1765):
Fig. 1. Girl spinning with a spindle.
2. Woman spinning at a spinning wheel, shown in fig. 10.
3. Girl making a skein, by passing the thread from a spool onto the reel, fig. 9.
4. Woman winding the skein of thread from the spinning wheel into balls, fig. 11.
5. Two types of spindles. a b, d e, the body of the spindle. b c, e f, the shaft.
6. Spindle and loop that stops the thread at its end.
7. Another spindle.
8. Reel used as a winder to put the thread into a skein. A B is the rod. B is the handle: 1, 2, 3, 4 are the sticks which should be spaced a quarter of an aune apart.
9. Winding reel. a b, c d the runners. e f, e f the uprights. a c, e e, b d the crossbars. f f the shaft. n n the spokes. l m, l m the horns. g the crank. p h, c k the supports that hold the spool k, which is pierced by an iron spindle of which h is the handle.
10. Spinning wheel operated by foot and hand, described in Fil.
11. Swift for winding yarn into balls. A B is the spindle. C D is the base, in the center of which is placed the upright that passes through the large and small crossbars. E F G H is the large crossbar, whose four arms fold at K, as seen at G, so that it takes up less space when not in use; the skein is held taut by the four pegs that are placed as needed in the holes of the arms. A is the bowl in which the ball of yarn is placed when the work is finished. The railing on the base serves to hold the finished balls of yarn. Below the bowl A, and at the lower part of the small crossbar, there is a cavity that receives the tip of the spindle A B, so that this machine can rotate freely.
(See the original text at the ARTFL Encyclopédie.)
Hand reels and niddy-noddies
Wooden hand reels from Lanarkshire, Scotland, 18th century
Skinner 3259T, Lot 1153, four 18th century wool-winding tools from the Marge Staufer Americana Collection, 18th century New England
Portrait of a girl winding silk, 18th century
GUCO 1625, a niddy-noddy from Maine, marked "1777"
Concord Museum H2000, a pine reel probably made in Concord, Massachusetts, in the late 18th or early 19th century; “Central shaft, with a perpendicular arm at either end. One in shaped as a handle; the other is slightly longer. Three notches in each edge at each end of shaft. Arms have slight curve, and curve back at tips (to keep yarn from sliding off). One end of the arm does not curve back, presumably to allow the yarn to be removed. One end of other arm has 6 deep notches and three shallower notches, presumably for measuring the amount of yarn (apparently one set of notches was put in after the other, possibly to correct measurements). White yarn is strung around it.”
Additional hand reels at the Concord Museum:
H0159 and
H0221
Swifts
Miniature winding-tools from a dollhouse, 17th-18th century
Laboratorio di ricamo by Pietro Longhi
Skinner 3259T, Lot 1153, four 18th century wool-winding tools from the Marge Staufer Americana Collection, 18th century New England
The hard-working mother by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, 1740
Interior with a wool-winding girl by Louis Aubert, 1746
Industry and Idleness: The Fellow 'Prentices at their Looms by William Hogarth, 1747
Matin, 1761
An old lady gives a prediction to a young lady by Pehr Hilleström, c. 1775
Pook & Pook Jun 18 2010, Lot 1353, a tabletop wool winder
Wiederseim Associates Nov 24 2012, Lot 490, a wool-winder with turned legs, late 18th century
The Wool Winder by Pehr Hilleström
Reading in candlelight by Pehr Hilleström, 1805
Clock reels and spinner’s weasels
Miniature winding-tools from a dollhouse, 17th-18th century
H2016 a clock reel, probably made in Concord, Massachusetts; “Six arms. This clock reel counted the usual forty strands in a knot. Twenty knots made a skein. Holds original flax.”
Cooperstown Graduate Program T2020.0001.3, clock reel from the northeastern United States, c. 1750-1800
Philadelphia Art Museum 1938-6-1, a measuring reel, Pennsylvania, c. 1780-1800
Irish Linen Making (Representing Spinning, Reeling with the Clock Reel, and Boiling the Yarn), 1791
National Museum of American History 56613, an 18th century six-arm clock reel, possibly used at Mount Vernon in Virginia
Merrill’s Nov 6 2020, Lot 209, an 18th century clock reel yarn winder with chip carving
Historic New England 1986.285, a clock reel, c. 1800-1850
Other swifts, reels, and winding tools
Diagram of Fil, Roüet, Dévidoirs in the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, s.n. Fil et laine, 1765
Handwerke und Künste: Der Scheerer, Elementarwerke für die Jugend und ihre Freunde, 1774
A yarn-winder from Dalry parish in Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, 18th or 19th century
