A small group of TWiNE members met on February 25th at Slater Mill Historic Site , in Pawtucket, RI. Slater Mill is the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution, on the mighty Blackstone River. I was the head tour guide for a brief time, 27 years ago, and I have always loved the Mill. To find out more about it, read David Macaulay’s fabulously illustrated book Mill. After our lunch and our meeting and “show and tell,” we took a tour of the three buildings: Sylvanus Brown House, a 1758 colonial home, where people processed, spun and wove their own wool and linen. This building was moved to the Historic Site in 1962. The loom in the house could have been owned by the family, or it could have been set up by an itinerant weaver, who went around to different homes, to weave with the wool and linen that the family had been spinning all year. It took about 3 months to card and spin enough yarn to weave fabric for one set of clothes. Most people could on...
TWiNE is a group of tapestry weavers in the New England area.