The Wool Journey Part 12: spinning at last!
Above is a picture of a replica of the original Spinning Jenny - see credits at the end of this article.
It is interesting to see that, when we have people touring our mill, those who are hand spinners at once understand what our machines are doing, since each stage in the process has been individually automated over time. Many of the machines are also not significantly changed from their original designs – they go faster, have electric motors instead of being steam or water driven, have guards to keep operators safe and have some electronic controls, but intrinsically are pushing fibre through and twisting in the same way as when they were first designed.