Patricia Baines

Patricia Baines started her career as an oboe player and teacher until she became interested in textiles in the 1960s, studying spinning and weaving at Gloucestershire College of Art and Design. In 1970 she began researching the history of spinning wheels, in the course of which she visited museums in the British Isles and Europe. Her book, Spinning Wheels, Spinners and Spinning, won the Craft Council prize for the best craft book of the year in 1978. Since moving to Bath in 1982 she has catalogued the Rita Beales collection of linen in the Crafts Study Centre. She is now a freelance lecturer and teacher, introducing students to flex spinning whenever she can.