Dog Tooth 208/365

Factory knitted dog tooth check.

I remember learning how to weave this pattern on a big loom when I was about twelve or thirteen.  We started by combing lambswool and then hand spinning and teasing out a fine yarn with our fingers.  Once this skill was mastered and we could make a 1 yard/metre thread we moved on to spinning with a drop spindle.  Next came the spinning wheel, just like Sleeping Beauty.

Our spinning apprenticeship finally completed we moved on to weaving, starting with a simple hand-loom with a stick shuttle and working up to a large multi-pedal loom.  If we produced cloth to the teacher’s satisfaction we earned a certificate, which we also had to create ourselves, typesetting and printing on an old cast iron press and trimming on a fearsome pneumatic guillotine.

Our craft teacher was Mr Ivor Westwood, an imposing dark-haired man with the looks and voice of Brian Blessed.  Here he is on the left in the 1960s.  I’ve since found he was probably a cousin.

He set very high expectations and, if they weren’t met, he would let you know.  Unfortunately for us Mr Westwood had a couple of foibles that could make it difficult to know who he wanted to chastise.  Earlier in life he’d nearly lost the end of an index finger and the resulting “fix” had left it pointing thirty degrees to the right.  Coupled with this were his mismatched chameleon eyes, which always seemed to be working in opposition.  Consequently, when his face reddened and he stopped, pointed, stared and released a loud “You boy!” at some miscreant, the combination of bent finger and battling eyes meant we rarely knew who his target was.  The suspense was almost worse than the punishment.

It might not sound like it, but these are happy memories.

Hand spinning and drop spindle on YouTube.