As you may know, I’ve been collecting vintage french spindles for a few years now, and have now a total of about 70 (!). I also have a large collection of vintage postcards showing spindle spinning in various areas of France.
All this goes towards a personal project: gathering as much information on french spindles and spinning with french spindles for an ebook where I would also show all the spindles I have, and my collection of antique postcards.
I am now starting to find some interesting information about how they were used, and why people would use either the spindles or wheels.
One of the most notable things you can notice on all those postcards is the different types of fiber spun on those spindles:
they would spin hemp, linen or wool.
Can you recognize which is which on those postcards (no linen here though, didn’t scan those yet) ? 🙂
Where are the postcards from? I am a bit obsessed with coiffes, and I can’t place these (though the middle one looks Breton?).
Hi abby, for some reason I can’t reply directly to your comment… The first postcard (from left to right) is from Pontivy (Bretagne), the second one from Chateaulun, and the third one from Creuse (center of France). 🙂