The Spinning Wheel Sleuth

Information about spinning wheels and looms you can’t find anywhere else!

The Spinning Wheel Sleuth is the only periodical devoted exclusively to spinning wheels and related tools.

Our goal is to collect, exchange, and share information about spinning wheels before the wheels and the material about them are completely lost.

Universally used before the industrial age, the variations in spinning wheels are endless. We study all aspects of wheel structures: unusual and ordinary, historic and contemporary, as well as regional and ethnic variations. We research the biographies of wheel makers and discuss repairs and restorations.

Subscribe to The Spinning Wheel Sleuth

Our more than 100 Back Issues contain a wealth of information that is useful to spinners, spinning-wheel collectors, and textile researchers. This information can also help curators at historical societies and museums to identify some of the objects in their collections.

Back issues are available in print [#91 to present] or the earlier issues are on three Flash drive compilations.

Hand Looms Supplements

The Hand Looms Supplements use the same format as the quarterly newsletter. These annual publications focus on antique and ethnic hand looms, as well as some 20th-century looms used by contemporary handweavers. As with spinning wheels, we are trying to collect the information about hand looms, and make it accessible to as many people as possible, before it and the looms are lost.

Hand Looms Supplements are sold separately from the quarterly newsletters, but subscribers receive a discount.

Most of the Supplements are still in print, but Supplements #1 to #10 are available on flash drive.