They may find they have more tow on their distaff than they know how to spin. (A. C. Doyle, ‘The White Company’, ch. V) — У них может оказаться столько работы, что они с ней и не справятся.
Большой англо-русский фразеологический словарь. - М.: «Русский язык-Медиа».. 2006.
Tow — Cheap coarse hemp or flax for low quality spinning. Tow was bound on a *distaff which was carried by a woman on her way to the *pillory for punishment. To have tow on the distaff meant one had ample work. Cf. Distaff … Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases
Distaff — Queen Berthe instructing girls to spin flax on spindles using distaffs, Albert Anker, 1888 … Wikipedia
top — top1 /top/, n., adj., v., topped, topping. n. 1. the highest or loftiest point or part of anything; apex; summit. 2. the uppermost or upper part, surface, etc., of anything. 3. the higher end of anything on a slope. 4. Brit. a. a part considered… … Universalium
textile — /teks tuyl, til/, n. 1. any cloth or goods produced by weaving, knitting, or felting. 2. a material, as a fiber or yarn, used in or suitable for weaving: Glass can be used as a textile. adj. 3. woven or capable of being woven: textile fabrics. 4 … Universalium
Spinning wheel — For the computer animation commonly found on the Internet, see Spinning wheel (animation). For the Blood, Sweat Tears song, see Spinning Wheel (song). Irish spinning wheel around 1900 Library of Congress collection A spinning wheel is a device… … Wikipedia
Spinning (textiles) — Spinning is an ancient textile art in which plant, animal or synthetic fibers are twisted together to form yarn (or thread, rope, or cable). For thousands of years, fiber was spun by hand using simple tools, the spindle and distaff. Only in the… … Wikipedia
Niddy noddy — with a removable crossbar. A niddy noddy (plural niddy noddies [1]) is a tool used to make skeins from yarn. It consists of a central bar, with crossbars at each end, offset from each other by 90°. The central bar is generally carved to make it… … Wikipedia
Spinning mule — A pair of Condenser spinning mules. These have 741 spindles, being cut down from 133 feet (41 m) 1122 spindles they used to have up until the 24th Sept 1974, when they were retired from Elk Mill, Royton. The mule was built by Platt Brothers … Wikipedia
Combing — For the video visual defect artifact, see Interlace. Noble comber in Bradford Combing is a method for preparing carded fibre for spinning. It separates out the short fibres by means of a rotating ring of steel pins. The fibres in the top it… … Wikipedia
