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Three spinners sit in the kitchen. In the living room sits another group of four--two spinning and two knitting. The spinners hold the fleece in one hand while the other hand gently feeds fibers in the direction of the wheel. As each person peddles the wheel around, the drawn fibers are twisted into yarn or thread. They stop from time to time to change the position of the newly spun twine on the spool. Then they give the wheel a push and are off again.
Tonight the knitters are confined to the living room. One is using a large glass jar to keep the yarn from rolling about on the floor. The sound of turning wheels and clicking knitting needles is a barely audible. The conversation is warm and lively. So lively, in fact, that among the spinners and knitters are three others who are just here for the conversation. Tonight Gail Rhodes' country home is, as is usually the case, the meeting place for the Fiber Guild. The 20-plus members meet once a week to spin fibers and make things from their spinning. They trade knowledge, supplies, craft secrets, stories, and good humor. Some spin fine thread and others spin thick yarn, according to need. A new male member is learning to spin thick wool for rug making.
When you think of Fairfield businesses and the life-styles that go with them, what comes to mind most readily are the high-tech software and communication companies, so it might seem a little unusual when its citizens choose activities and interests that seem to contradict the normal trends of Fairfield. So why do they do it? It's a satisfying craft, of course, and the revival of an older time lends part of the charm. But, also, for Rhodes, it's spiritual.
"The movie Gandhi first sparked my interest in spinning," she says. "I liked the way the spinning of fibers expressed self-sufficiency and non-violence--animals aren't harmed to produce fibers for cloth." Mahatma Gandhi took his spinning wheel with him everywhere. He spun for half an hour every day, and called spinning a sacrament which helped to turn the spinner's mind "God-ward."
Gail only started spinning last summer, although she had considered it for many years. "I kept going past this farm on my way to Iowa City that had alpacas," she says. "I found the farm that sold them and bought two of them." Part of the camel family, alpacas are a smaller version of a llama. Indians in the highlands of Peru attribute supernatural powers to the alpaca, claiming it is the only fiber from which magic or curative thread can be spun. "Alpacas are clean animals with a fiber that is as soft as cashmere," Rhodes says.
Besides the two alpacas, she has three angora goats. The five animals jockey for position to receive a treat whenever she visits their corral. The deer-like alpacas stand five feet high. The angoras stand two feet high, with hair dragging the ground that completely hides their legs. They love being petted and stand on their hind legs for treats.
Rhodes' home also speaks volumes about her beliefs in Gandhi's philosophy of self-sufficiency and non-violence. Her kitchen doesn't look like an average homemaker's. Her tools resemble relics from a bygone era--her juicers and grinders have large leverage-giving handles instead of electric motors. The heating stove is a wood burner, and the cooking stove is a large, cast-iron, Heartland--a wood burner converted to gas.
The fact that Rhodes and others who are resurrecting the craft find it almost spiritual isn't surprising when one considers how deeply entwined spinning is in many different cultures.
The American Indians of the southwest traditionally spun fibers into threads by sitting on the ledges of the Grand Canyon and letting their weighted strands of twine hang into the gorges. The vistas of those canyons was certain to have evoked a sense of spirituality for those spinners. The tax for citizens of the Andes is today, as it has been for thousands of years, rope twisted from grass for use on the rope bridges of the highland footpaths. Each member of the community twists his allotted amounts and helps build the swinging bridges that span their mountain gorges. This aspect of community involvement seems to be lively in the awareness of Fiber Guild members.
But whatever the cultural implications, spinning is almost becoming a mini-industry in the Fairfield area. Many guild members have their own animals, and there is no lack of spinning supplies or expertise in Fairfield. When Rhodes bought her two alpacas, her daughter got on the internet to find a spinning wheel, and found a spinning wheel distributer right here in Fairfield. Gail received it for her birthday.
Classes are even available in the area. Jacklyn Johnson of Brighton gives beginning spinning classes in Brighton and at the Sewing Room in Fairfield. She also sells spinning wheels through Heartland Woolworks. Marie-Hélène Tourenne and Marguerite Belot of Artisans de France also offer expertise. Together, these two French ladies have over 50 years' experience in weaving. They were trained by the weavers who weave tapestries for the Vatican. Their Jack looms provide a place for spinners to have their fibers turned into fabrics, fine linens, and specialty or customized items. If you visit their studio you can see their flying shuttle looms in action.
So how does one get started? One can get started spinning with hardly any start-up expenses. Very fine yarn can easily be made without the use of a wheel, by using a drop spindle. The art of drop spinning is thousands of years old. The relatively more recent spinning wheel is easy to master, and at the Guild meeting, 12-year-olds Annalisa Morgan and Alisha Greiner were knitting with very evenly spun yarn which they had spun on wheels.
With a little luck, a good wheel today can be had for as little as $300. Nancy Morgan paid that for her space-age-looking double treadle, a MajaCraft which folds compactly for traveling. The double treadle seems to be the latest trend, because spinners believe that it produces greater coherence between the right and left hemispheres of the brain.
Fairfielders never get too far from high tech or modern science. "The charm and attraction of coming together to make yarn and weave," says Rhodes, "is that it is such a time-honored and natural activity--very transcendental."
For more information on the Fiber Guild, call Gail Rhodes at 472-6082.
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