The Niddy-Noddy (part 2), or: A Closer Look.

Let's start out with taking a closer look at the yarnwinder with the perpendicular arms. This is how it looks when yarn is wound onto it:



As you can see, it sort of looks like a V-shape made by the yarn, and that is the case from every side. Looking at it like this, it's not that easy to draw, but also not completely impossible.

In fact, there are plenty of images from early modern times where such a yarnwinder is shown absolutely correctly, such as the one in "Man and Woman by the Spinning Wheel" from about 1560-70.

The earliest I have found yet is dating to the 1460s and is in the collection of the Royal Library of the Netherlands - a woman riding a pig and winding off yarn.

If I'm trying to draw how it looks and try to take out any attempt at perspective at the same time, I'm ending up with something like this:

[caption id="attachment_3683" align="alignnone" width="495"] Yes. My skills at making freehand drawings on the computer with the touchpad are very, very near zero. Sorry.


It is caused by trying to capture the V-shape the yarn forms and showing all four strands of yarn. It's not really close to the actual thing, but have you tried to draw a bicycle recently, without looking at one to do it? The chances it would be non-functional, but other people are recognising it without any problems as a bicycle are rather high.

Coincidentally, this drawing does look similar to some of the yarnwinder illustrations in medieval manuscripts...

To be continued.