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 wheel Spinning wheel A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from natural or synthetic fibres. Spinning wheels were first used in India, between 500 and 1000 A.D. Spinning machinery, such as the spinning jenny and spinning frame, displaced the spinning wheel during the Industrial Revolution. The spinning wheel was invented in India, between 500 and 1000 A.D. The earliest clear illustrations of the spinning wheel come from Baghdad (drawn in 1234), China ("c." 1270) and Europe ("c." 1280), and there is evidence that spinning wheels had already come into use in both China and the Islamic world