A visit to the Forge Mill Needle Museum, Redditch

Ever since I heard there was a needle museum, I have wanted to visit it and recently, had the chance to.

It is on the same site as Bordesley Abbey, which, these days, is only visible as earthworks; it dates from 1138. We didn't view these as we didn't have time and it was raining.

The mill began life as a forge for iron around the turn of the 18th Century but it became a needle scouring mill around 1730 and some of the machinery only stopped being used in May 1958.

I had not, hitherto, thought much about the process of needle-making and I think I also had knitting needles in mind when I thought about the visit. As you will see, I show no photos of those as I didn't find any......

The story of the development of needle-making can be found  in the history of needle-making, Avery Needle Case Resource Centre and http://fashion-history.lovetoknow.com/fashion-history-eras/history-needles-sewing online and through reading the handbook produced by the Mill. Originally, it was blacksmith's work, then became associated with immigrant needle-makers who settled in London, Chichester and Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire. Once established locally to Redditch, the craft spread, so that by the end of the 19th century, the town became the centre for the industry.

The following images help describe the processes carried out...

The wire for the needles was obtained from Sheffield and the areas around Wolverhampton known as the Black Country and was straightened, above. The next process was known a 'needle pointing'. 

This was such a dangerous task as the worker would hold between 50 and 100 pieces of wire to be pointed, using the palms of his hands which had to be very close to a fast-moving grindstone. The process only took a matter or seconds and then, the other end was sharpened. Eventually, this process was mechanised but not before many men were maimed and lost their lives sometime between the ages of 28 and 35 to 'Pointer's Rot', a lung disease caused by inhaling the find metal dust produced by the sharpening process.

The eyes of the needles were stamped out...

Piecework by women and children at home made sure the burrs from stamping the eyes were filed off.

Then the needles were hardened off.

To finish off the needles, it was necessary to clean and polish them. They were scoured..

The needles were rolled in cloth with the addition of soft soap, emery powder and grease in bundles of around 60,000 needles. The best needles took a week to get through this process, the lesser ones, a day.

A needle Sett, ready for rolling

After this, they were washed off and rolled again with the addition of olive oil and tin oxide. Finally, they were tumbles in barrels of hot sawdust to dry them out.

The needles were put into the requisite packaging....

A wide variety of needles were made: every kind of sewing needle, crochet hooks, those for knitting ( very few, from what I could see..) and gramophones together with hypodermic needles and fishing hooks. 

The museum holds a bewildering array of needles in display cases...

These are just three examples. There was one case devoted to surgical needles..

Blanket making...

Glove making..

Sock making..

Also....

Embroidery

Smocking

Miniature needlework

Bookbinding

Beadwork

Crochet

I was interested (and a bit disappointed, it must be said) to be unable to find much about knitting needles...

However, here are some of the other displays:

I always find images of peoples' lives from the past interesting; here are some of the workers..(with apologies for the wonky images)

Lastly, from inside the museum, two images of needle book displays, which are so pretty, I couldn't leave them out.

These pictures only show some of the displays and information to be seen in the museum..

...whereas outside..

..there is a watermill and Mill Pond. At the time we went there was also a family of swans.

Here are a few more images taken outside, before I sign off this post.

I would recommend the museum as an interesting place to visit. Although the eating facilities are a bit sparse, there are picnic benches and there is also a children's playground.

I will be interested in reader's comments, especially from anyone who has visited the museum.

In the beginning.....

....well, strictly speaking, it isn't the beginning - not of my spinning, knitting and felting, anyway; just the beginning of a new Blog. For a long time, I have mulled over whether I should have a separate one for my craft interests and have finally decided to go ahead. Grandma's Yarns will mainly contain stories and reports of some of the things I and the other half of this family (alias The Archaeologist) get up to at home and on our travels. Thus, I hope, my family and friends who aren't really interested in my fibre-y pastimes don't have to wade through it all (there is quite a bit on Grandma's Yarns...). This one is still in the making but if I let this post 'sit', I have learned from experience that it will become both very delayed and too long, so, it is a 'Blog in progress/development...

At the moment, I have both wheels out and am working on some silk that I have had for a long time on my Joy wheel and using the Traveller to do a bit of experimenting. I have lots of raw fleece that I want to make use of but I like to use other fibres too.

Some while ago, I bought two Ouessant fleeces: one was much smaller than the other. This week, I decided that I needed to begin spinning them, so I tried putting a handful of the smaller one (below) through my Picker, as I thought it would loosen the fibre up. 

Instead, I found myself with a bundle of very short pieces of fibre (below) that I didn't know what to do with: I decided that this was too rough a process for them. 

I next tried carding some more and then spinning the result, which proved difficult and very lumpy (below. I currently have a lace flier fitted to my Traveller but haven't used it much, which might contribute to the fact that the Ouessant is very unevenly spun. 

Next, I tried some of the larger fleece (below) and carded that. The staple was somewhat longer but not appreciably. I looked up the breed in The Fleece and Fibre Sourcebook and read that the Ouessant is a double- and perhaps even triple-coated sheep, so there are short, softer fibres and longer, course ones. The suggestion is that it can be carded or combed. I generally use a drum carder but this time, used hand carders and discovered at the same time, that my left wrist no longer liked the process, so I won't be able to card much this way. 

I spun the larger fleece......

...and this is the yarn. I kept having to stop spinning to pick out very short, fluffy bits, which didn't look like second cuts - more like tiny bits of the fleece. 

The yarns from both fleeces are very uneven, more so than my spinning usually is. I don't know if the lace flier I am using is partly responsible or whether I am just not skilled enough to spin such a fleece but, either way, I don't like using that flier at all. My spinning tends to the finer gauge, so I thought it would be a good idea to have something specialised....

With so much unprocessed fleece on my mind, I decided to begin washing a bit regularly instead of waiting (interminably) to have a free and a fine day which coincide. With this in mind, I have begun with my cleanest, a Valais Blacknose that I had sent from Scotland. So far, I have washed three lots over three days. I have been soaking it, rinsing and then spinning it dry tightly packed into a small net bag. It comes out all bouncy with some crimping. I will try drum carding it and comb some as well. 

It has quite a long staple: around 20cm and it feels fairly coarse.

I will be interested to hear from anyone who has tried spinning either of these fleeces....but for now, back to other things...