Hand spinning on these types of wheels, both hands are free (since the wheel is turned with a treadle, rather than by hand), so the spinner can use one hand to draft the fibres and the other to wet them. Modern powered spinning, originally done by water or steam power but now done by electricity, is vastly faster than hand-spinning. The spinning jenny, a multi-spool spinning wheel invented c. 1764 by James Hargreaves, dramatically reduced the amount of work needed to produce yarn of high consistency, with a single worker able to work eight or more spools at once. At roughly the
Spinning mule end. In the 1920s much attention was given to this problem. Mules had used this mixture since the 1880s, and cotton mules ran faster and hotter than the other mules, and needed more frequent oiling. The solution was to make it a statutory requirement to only use vegetable oil or white mineral oils, which were believed to be non-carcinogens. By then cotton mules had been superseded by the ring frame and the industry was contracting, so it was never established whether these measures were effective. Spinning mule The spinning mule is a machine used to spin cotton and other fibres.