Yesterday Was Total Bobbins

A Half-Term visit to Paradise Mill in Macclesfield


"The start of all Technology in this world"


300 times for one Inch of Cloth


My Office yesterday while I was out of it. (See the 3 Ghz PC on the desk to the right.)

It was interesting to note after seeing all the expensive processes that had to be carried out to produce silk, that the museum shop was selling silk at £3 per square metre which brings home how advanced the technology has become. It used to take three days to set up a loom to weave silk. Once a roll of Warp threads ran out a new one had to be connected in and rather than redo the whole thing, a Twister-In was employed to connect up all of the warp threads from the old roll to the new one. This only took a day and so saved two man-days. The Jaquard cards were used to lift the Weft in pre-defined patterns so as to create the designs.

My daughter was pleased to be able to have a go at loading a shuttle bobbin using a large sort of spinning wheel. Kids of six would come to the mill after school to do this work.

Love the irony in the name Paradise Mill