How to ply with tool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OjtQkOGb84

This video shows how to ply with the tool depicted in the previous post. For a good two decades I cherished this tool, not properly understanding how it was used. Thanks to this wonderful video, in youtube, this amazing Portuguese tradition is portrayed with much ease and beauty. I am often amazed with my country traditions, and this is one of them. Enjoy.
And thanks to the youtube video maker.

Plying Tool

This is a tool that was used to ply. In the old days in Portugal, kitchens had beams in the ceiling. In one of those beams a hook was nailed, and this plying spindle was the weight for free plying anticlockwise from the low ceiling.

Socks by Dna Maria from "Combate ao Frio".

Dna Maria is a Knitter from a village in the interior of the country. Her socks are a live document of popular knitting. She is the responsible for the comfort of many of us, not only for our warm feet in winter but also our warm hands. The wool that Dna Maria knits with is Portuguese, is a single strand, and in natural shades.

Very old Spindle

Stoneleafmoon kindly sent me the photo of this very old Spindle. It resembles the Portuguese Spindles of today. Is it European? How old is it?

Video on how to spin with the Portuguese Spindle

www.youtube.com/watch?v=536xdbY-RJQ

Spinning with the Portugese Spindle

The method of spinning with these spindles is by twisting continuously the top and not ever let the spindle fall. When one is drafting the wool - some women prefer to have them in the apron pocket - we open it while the top metal end of the spindle sits in one´s palm hold by the fingers that are not sorting the wool. The other method is by using the distaff.

Portugese Spindles

According to the region they are from, the Portugese spindles can vary from carved in wood to having the top part in metal. The very top of the spindles, either in the carved ones or the metal ones, is shaped as a spiral, very much like a wide screw spiral. The weigh of the Spindle is important, and women choose the one that feels better. The carved ones that I have can vary between 23cm and 32cm, and they are made in heather wood. I bought them in a place in the mountains, and they are still being made, but with the forest fires the local heather wood is not reaching the desired width. The metal ones are not in production any more.

The black one is my personal spindle. It spins quite fine and has more then hundred years old.