Crios-iarna or Niddy-noddy
Strathnaver Museum

This object was used for winding wool, ready for knitting.  

‘Iarnas’, or hanks of wool, were formed by winding wool as it came off a spinning wheel in a figure of eight pattern around the crosspieces of wood at either end.   

This crios-iarna has been blackened by hanging for many generations in peat smoke. It probably dates from the late 18th century.   

Colin Mackay McRorie was said to have brought it with him from Tongue, when he was cleared from there in 1819 by Lord Reay and resettled at Skerray Mains with his son Angus. It would have been a useful, practical object and important to save.