msfledermaus | New technology, old technology... (Reply)

I've just finished cooking and eating a very nice pasta and salmon dinner with a white wine sauce, and now that I've finished it and drank the nice glass of white wine that went with it I'm on the couch, playing with the computer and spinning a little black and red wool with a drop spindle. The spinning wheel is much faster and a smoother ride generally, but there's something kind of cosy playing with a spindle on the couch. I like to think of all my female ancestors...for the most part I have no idea who they were or where they came from, what they were like. I'm pretty sure for the most part they wouldn't have approved of me and my modern views of things like work and sex and whatnot. But I do know they all did handwork of some kind. My great-grandmother did some needlepoint, and my great-great grandmother was apparently famous for her mad knitting skills. And before that? I know a lot of them were on the steppes of Siberia, probably spinning with something not unlike my drop spindle if they were out in the fields or the woods. Or doing a little knitting while out watching the sheep or inside spinning with a wheel while waiting for the piroshkis to finish baking...

It's nice to feel a little connected to the past and people I'll never get to meet. My family history is spotty at best, and complex--just like everybody's, I think. It's a quiet warm feeling that I can share something basic with some of those ladies that went way, way before me. I do think they'd probably throw up their hands in horror at my modern, sloppy technique, though. *chuckle*