I wasn’t sure if the stuff hanging on the wooden spinning wheel was real hair or a synthetic wig. But it looked out of place there on a piece of equipment that I associate with wool and yarn.
I asked the couple standing next to me if they knew why the two were together. They were just as baffled as me. I wrote a blog post about how human hair was used for making jewelry during Victorian times, so I guess spinning it wouldn’t be much of a stretch. I’d think it would be too thin, though.
Curious for an answer – if there were one – I went Googling. I found a photo for sale of a Victorian-looking woman standing next to a spinning wheel with hair on it, but the photo had no caption. I saw several links on how to spin dog and pet hair into yarn as a keepsake, but I didn’t bother to check the links.
So, I kept searching for the connection. Then I came across another link on spinning dog hair into yarn and was sufficiently intrigued. It was the story of a woman who’d made a business of it in her western New York home. She creates flowers, pillows, hats, scarves, shawls and more, priced at $30 to $500 (for a shawl). She asks pet owners to hoard the stuff in paper bags or pillowcases until they have enough. She even says that dog hair is warmer than wool.
One of her most common questions, according to the story: Will the item smell like the family dog if it gets wet? She says no, that once the hair is cleaned of the animal’s oils, it will not smell like dog.
It still seemed kind of yucky to me. I kept searching for whether human hair could be spun. On a thread in a 2008 forum, a woman asked for advice on spinning her own hair after her husband said he’d wear a sweater made of it. Respondents suggested that she combine it with wool.
I wasn’t able to find anything authoritative on the issue, so I’m assuming that some auction staffer inadvertently dropped the wig atop the spinning wheel. I wasn’t around when it sold, but I’m sure the buyer was thinking wool as the preferable material rather than hair.
If you’re in the market for a spinning wheel to use with yarn, here are some tips on how to buy.
Postscript: A reader emailed and identified the material as flax, and I found a photo of flax and a complete flax wheel:
“The fiber that you see hanging from this flax wheel is probably flax … which can look like bad synthetic hair, and maybe someone stuck something on there that should not have been there, but I think it is actually old flax fiber. The plant fiber is harvasted from the flax plant (long time consuming processing stage) then when spun produces linen … which is then knit or more often woven. The section that it is hanging from is called a distaff and have usually gone missing from antique wheels. It looks like the top of this one is actually broke … those spokes often join up at the top to a point and is called the bird nest, but the rest of the wheel seems complete. Cotton production took the place of flax once the cotton gin was invented. Lots of nursery rhymes refer to spinning the golden flax.”
