Brisbane Spinning Guild. REVIVAL OF AN OLD INDUSTRY.

Spinning is such an old handicraft that most modern Australian girls grew up with the idea that spinning belonged more to the time of fairy tales than to a period within even living memory. They all knew the story of the princess who was spinning when her wicked godmother cast a spell and transformed her into a sleeping beauty. Old legends of the homeland told of the women who spun, and one knew that in Highland cottages, with grandfather clocks, deep, wide fireplaces and inglewoods, there were spinning wheels hidden away in some forgotten corner.

But to-day in Brisbane there are hundreds of spinners spinning wool to make socks for the soldiers. Owing to the scarcity and price of wool a Brisbane Wool Spinning Guild was started in Brisbane over a year ago by a small band of enthusiasts, one object being to provide wool to soldiers’ relatives at less than the shop prices.

There are now over 100 spinning wheels belonging to the guild, the wheels being made from bicycle wheels donated to the guild, and manufactured by the Railway Department free of charge. The majority of these are hired out to Brisbane members at the rate of 5s. for six months. Wheels may also be bought from £2. 10s., and numbers have been sold to country members. In some sheep stations the wool is grown, dipped, spun, carded and made into socks on the homestead, the complete article being a product of that one station.

So far, all the wool used by the guild has been donated by the squatters of Queensland, and since all the work is voluntary it is possible to sell the spun and carded wool at less than the ordinary cost price. The carding is either hand-carded at the rooms, or it is done at the mills through the courtesy of the mill-owners.

The rooms are open every Tuesday and Friday, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., third floor, Courier Building. And what a busy and picturesque scene is presented on these days. On each side of the long room are women sitting at the spinning wheels, about 20 wheels all moving at the same time. It is here that beginners are taught, and experienced spinners work industriously. Members are allowed to buy the carded wool, but all wool spun at home on the hired machine is returned to the guild, where it is weighed and examined by the committee. A small book of instruction was compiled and issued last year so that women in the country have every facility to learn. The guild has been of inestimable value to women who have a number of relatives at the war, and who found the price of wool a severe tax on slender means. The movement has steadily grown throughout Queensland in the last year, and no better testimony of the work could be shown than the splendid exhibitions of wool displayed by amateur spinners at the Brisbane Show, both this year and last year, and at the recent Toowoomba Show. The renewal of spinning shows the determination of women to use every means possible to alleviate the hardships of war.

McDonnell & East’s Values are without a Peer —in all Brisbane— And we are splendidly ready in every imaginable way to show or send to you just what you like to wear in FROCKS BLOUSES SKIRTS UNDERCLOTHING MILLINERY KNITTING WOOLS, Etc. Our prices are notably moderate, and our varieties broad and unstinted. This is the ideal stock for the economical—and who is not economical these days? Our Fancy Goods are Superb! McDONNELL & EAST LTD. “The White Store,” George Street, Brisbane.