A shared walking wheel

Over seven months after my friend Cecilia and I won an auction for a walking wheel I finally get to see the wheel in person. Meet Beata Sophia!

Back in September I stumbled upon an online auction for a walking wheel. Those of you who are looking for one know they are hard to find and rarely complete and working. This one was, though.

Space for a wheel

One reason why the walking wheels are so hard to find is that they take up a lot of space, few people have room in their homes for one, and many wheels have been turned into firewood. I looked at the auction page, longed and sighed –I knew she wouldn’t be mine, we don’t have space for her.

I texted my friend Cecilia and showed her the rare find. Cecilia lives in the countryside and happens to have a storage house with lots of space. She is my second cousin and has an interest in genealogy and likes to save and store things from our family. Together we decided to bid for the wheel and keep it in her storage house if we won the auction. Her son has a van for his business that would be big enough to fit the wheel.

The opening bid was 300 Swedish kronor, about 26€/$28, an insult to the wheel. My pulse increased as it drew closer to the closing time of the auction. It turned out that there were no other bids. Cecilia and I were over the moon, and a couple of days later she and her son picked the wheel up.

A true beauty

Since then Cecilia has carved a new sprint where one was missing and added a beautiful fulled wool ribbon to wind across the wheel rim in Swedish walking wheel tradition. Together we decided to name her Beata Sophia, after an old foremother of ours, who is mentioned as a spinner in one of the documents Cecilia has saved. Her oil portrait hangs on the wall in Cecila’s home and she looks remarkably like Cecilia.

Origin unknown

We know nothing about the wheel. It came with no provenience and no marking or other clues to either origin, date or maker. Of the Swedish great wheels I have seen (more than five, less than ten), all have had a simpler look, with plain legs and spokes as opposed to ours with lots of turned details. The same goes for image googling at the Swedish Digital Museum – all the walking wheels have a more plain design. Ours is also the only one I have seen with a wooden spindle.

Cecilia did show me a black and white reproduction of an oil painting with one just like ours, though. From the interior and the dress I imagine a wheel like this would come from a fashionable home. It was painted by Pehr Hilleström around 1775. The painting portrays a spinner at Näs herrgård in Uppland, a couple of hours from both Cecilia and me.

We meet at last

I haven’t had time to visit Cecilia and Beata Sophia since before we won the auction, but last week I took the train to see them both. The day before, I carded a basketful of rolags to maximize the spinning time.

The wheel is such a beauty. Ornamented, but not excessively so. Simple in its execution and very well preserved. It was a lovely summer day and we took the wheel outside and placed her on a yard in front of the rural community center. With the right camera angle (away from the dustbins) it seemed a fitting context. I started the first rolag and kept going. She was such a joy to spin with! A bit fussy and noisy, but still smooth to work with. I had to stop myself from spinning all the 49 rolags I had prepared.

A photo shoot

After a lovely lunch with Cecilia and her family underneath the apple tree, Dan came. He was there to take photos for my book. I want to take as many outdoor photos as possible, with natural light and surroundings. We got some lovely shots by the rural community center and another series in a long alleyway toward the church.

All in all it was a beautiful day and a treasure to remember. I hope we can meet again soon, Cecilia, Beata Sophia and I.

If you have seen this type of walking wheel before, please tell me all about it! You can read more about my encounters with the walking wheel at Vallby open air museum here and here. A couple of years ago I made a video at Vallby with the walking wheel. It is available in English and Swedish.

Happy spinning!

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