Carders and Spinners

This island community is well-known on the mainland for their traditional cloth. It is a woollen broadcloth, akin to tweed, and it has been crafted in the same exact way for centuries. Your personal skill - and that of many in your family - is the process of carding and spinning the fleece into yarn. Carders and spinners tend to have very soft hands - it's the lanolin oil in the fleece that makes them so. You always work in pairs, one combing the fleece until it's a soft, untangled roll, the other feeding that roll onto the spinning yarn... and all the while spinning tall tales about the local community. Some spinners and carders also take on the role of oral historians: a living archive of the island's stories and history. Others are the teachers in the community. Children often sit around the spinning wheel to listen to stories: it is as much a part of their education as the more traditional lessons they have in the different crafts and trades on the island, and the basic skills required for life here.