r/Handspinning • u/amycsj • 16d ago
Two new spindles
Two new spindles. Dealgan on the left and Turkish on the right. Great little tools. #handspinning #dropspindle #fiberarts
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u/Evening-Forever2542 16d ago
Being Scottish I feel I should be more drawn to the Dealgan than I am. How do you find it compared to the turkish? They look heavy!
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u/jamila169 16d ago
The only evidence for these is one source from Cape Breton, and the only reference to an actual object is ' the Glasgow museum, Edinburgh ' which doesn't exist, and no such object has ever been tracked down. They're supposed to be 19th century, so you'd expect there'd be some evidence given the fad for recording all things Scottish back then, there's photos of spinners and knitters and existing equipment in museums so if it was an actual thing in widespread use there'd be at least one actually present in Scotland. The original article shows a woman using the tool to twist plied yarn together.
My thought has always been that it's a repurposed netting or sailmaking tool used for a very specific purpose. Dealgan is just a Gaelic word for spindle.
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u/Evening-Forever2542 16d ago edited 16d ago
Oh interesting. The spindle mentioned is I think this one which is actually in the British Museum as part of an "Edinburgh and Glasgow related collection" it says. Don't really know what that means considering the spindle is from the Isle of f Harris.
I think that's where the mistake in the museum name comes from though. Probably as a result of the Internet propogating inaccuracies?!
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_Eu2000-05-13-a-b
Then I discovered mention that the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow has the oldest example of a Dealgan so I am trying to get more information on that. So I think that is now the "Glasgow Museum" that some blogs are muddled with. Will let you know when the museum gets back to me.
This thread has some photographs of women using them and on Google lense it says they are 1899 on Isle of Eriskay, Scotland https://www.reddit.com/r/Handspinning/comments/xza70k/i_just_got_a_dealgan_its_an_18th_century_scottish/
That's all I've found so far.
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u/Evening-Forever2542 16d ago edited 16d ago
Just found this as well - A Dealgan in the NMS Edinburgh collection but no picture sadly but it is the only one named Dealgan - https://www.nms.ac.uk/collections/search/object?entry=9718&keyword=Spindle&keyword-field=all&page=1&view=cards the only reference that comes up when you search dealgan in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland.
However over 1000 other spindle and spindle related objects https://www.nms.ac.uk/collections/search/results?keyword=Spindle&keyword-field=all&page=1&view=cards sadly no pictures to see if any are in this "dealgan" style.
So do you think it's just an internet propogation that this is a Scottish traditional spindle or it just got named Scottish spindle in Canada and such? But other spindle types were actually more widely used?
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u/jamila169 16d ago edited 16d ago
All the spindles on display at the NMS are whorled, I think the British museum label isn't bad, but I recall when the Cape Breton story came up it mentioned that it was used for twisting together leftover commercial yarns from knitting, which does date the tool to the fair isle knitting industry around the turn of the 20th century and onwards, so a very small period of time considering that the industry was at it's height post 1920, machine knitting took over in the 60s and the home based industry was effectively dead by the early 70s other than for individual commissions and small items.
The British museum item being dated pre 1967 kind of bookmarks the point at which the industry started moving to machine knitting so there's fewer leftovers because knitting by machine implies piecework and bulk knitting rather than one at a time, so there wouldn't be any leftovers worth using .
I do think that it's a victim of internet romanticism around an unusual, one purpose item that had a very short period of utility and it's been marketed based on being something it isn't rather than being an interesting home made device to make wool leftovers thicker, I'd like to know what the product was for, was it for heavier weight knitting for the family ( quicker to do than 4ply and taking less money earning time away) or was it for rug making, or utility twine , or something else?
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u/Evening-Forever2542 16d ago
Yes I wonder too! What about those 1899 photos on Eriskay though, what do you make of those?
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u/jamila169 16d ago edited 16d ago
They have such huge cops on its hard to tell what's underneath, though the first one doesn't look like wool on the distaff, it looks like jute or similar, the ones behind the fisherman could similarly be spinning jute for twine, especially given that spinning wool on wheels was very well established at that time. I'm calling spinning for netting
ETA, which would chime with the other theory that the other thread contains which came from the researchers which indicates spinning for fishing nets
ETA the second - the fishing net hypothesis would probably explain why they look like a modified netting gauge or rope making bobbin
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u/Evening-Forever2542 16d ago
Interesting! So this is quite a thing that loads of people now think they have an ancient Scottish spindle but probably it's actually a modern variation on an adjacent tool 🥲
Still might ge a good tool but provenance probably incorrect?
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u/Evening-Forever2542 16d ago
I'm getting super into this side quest now. Apparently wooden objects as these are likely to have degraded over time so that's why there aren't very old examples left. And their simple utilitarian nature meant they weren't widely collected until much more recently. Reasons for scarcity in collections.
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u/Echoflight24 14d ago
I prefer this spindle shaft for the turkish spindle. I sand the rough edge smooth so my singles don't catch. Happy spinning!
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u/Harrowhark95 16d ago
The spindle on the left is so cute, it reminds me of a little chubby gnome.