People have made many beautiful ceramic spindle whorls over the millenia. Once, somewhere between the 9th and 15th centuries AD, a potter in Mesoamerican Mexico made a particular one with a motif like a flower, and I expect it was used with pleasure. This ceramic disk would most likely have been used as a low whorl. Centuries later, someone bought it and gave it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Later, the museum put a picture up on their website. When I saw it, the design struck me and kept coming back to mind. Once, I woke in the middle of the night and realized that it reminded me of a tam. The idea of wearing a hat made to resemble a tool used for making yarn felt satisfying, just as spinning and knitting yarn using methods known to many generations of skilled hands feels satisfying.

Malacatl is a Nahuatl word meaning spindle. I do not know if it was the word used by the people who made the original spindle.

These patterns are a subset of a larger eBook, Our Heads are Spinning. If you purchase Malacatl and decide you’d like to buy the complete eBook, let me know and I’ll make sure you get an equivalent discount on it.

Thanks!

eBook published in October 2013