Dressing a Distaff

I love history, and when history and spinning are in the same sentence you definitely have my interest! So I love just about any type of antique spinning tool. Including an amazing tool call a distaff. There are different sizes of distaffs, but the type I am posting about today is called a belt, or waist, distaff.

 It is about 3 feet long, and the bottom end is tucked in a belt while you use it. You are able to wrap a lot of fiber around the top of the distaff, giving you the ability to take most, or all, of the fiber for a project along with you. So you don't need to dig more fiber out of a project bag, it is already held neat and orderly on the distaff and is ready to use at any time. 

There are a lot of different ways to dress your distaff, depending on what type of distaff you are using and what type of fiber you want to put on it. But most of the time when using wool you are told to use a wool batt. And to lay the sheet of wool down with the fibers going horizontal to the distaff. Which is a wonderful way to spin, but what if all you have on hand is wool in roving form? Below I detail a method I have found that works well for using roving on a distaff. 

Below are some pictures of my belt distaff while it is bare, being dressed, and fully dressed and ready to use. I could have put a lot more fiber on it, but for my current project I only needed this much fiber. So as you can see you can put on as much or as little fiber as you need. 

Lay your fiber out where it is parallel with the distaff, with the opened up roving slightly over lapping each other. Then lay the distaff on one side and roll it up in the fiber.

Then take a long piece of ribbon and fold it in half. Attach the ribbon to the top of your distaff with a larks head knot. Then take your two long tales of ribbon and wrap them around your fiber in opposite directions, letting them crisscross each other like shown in the picture below. You want to leave part of the fiber unwrapped at the bottom for easy drafting while you spin. Tie it off with a simple bow, and you are finished! As you spin up the fiber you can unwrap the ribbon some more, retying the bow higher up as you go. 

Another way of tying the ribbon up would be with a spiral motion. After you attach the ribbon to the top of your distaff with a larks head knot, simply spiral both tails together down the fiber and then back up. Crisscrossing them as you go. Then tie the ribbon ends to the top of the distaff with a half hitch.