Spinning Yarn: Portland’s Fiber Arts Renaissance

Sari Peterson at her spinning wheel. Photo: © Heather Zinger.

Bobbie Wallace learned to knit before she could read or write. But she resisted learning to spin her own yarn because, by the time she was a veteran knitter, the pile of unfinished projects and yarn had become pretty significant.

"An enabler friend of mine shipped me a spinning wheel and said if I didn't like it, I could sell it or pass it along," Wallace says, looking over the blur of her spinning wheel with a wry smile.

Needless to say, she started spinning and was soon hooked.

Wallace is not the only one. Portland's got a new addiction, and it's the colorful and varied world of fiber arts. To find out why, I headed to Urban Fiber Arts in the yarn belt of the Pearl District. (Not far from Dublin Bay Knitting Co. and Knit Purl.)

The Spin Doctors

When I arrive, shop owner and self-termed "yarn stylist" Cindy Abernethy is busy helping a flurry of customers. At their wheels in the light-filled entrance sit three local fiber artists—Bobbie Wallace, Rachel Nichols, and Sari Peterson. I ask them what it is about spinning they love so much, opening the door onto a surprisingly complex subject.

"There are process spinners and there are product spinners," Nichols informs me. "I'm a process spinner. I spin to spin."

This love of process has nevertheless led to some seriously beautiful products: her Trtlgrl handspun yarns are available at Urban Fiber Arts in a variety of textures and colors.

Fiber arts educator Sari Peterson works for an environmental engineering consulting firm and says spinning provides a calming outlet after a stressful workday. On her office bookshelf, she keeps a drop spindle: the simplest of spinning tools, and the oldest. Carved depictions of the spindle—essentially a disc-topped stick and small hook—have been found on pyramid walls. Its portability allows the spinner to tap into the meditative zone on a lunch break, while riding the MAX, even while walking. Its calming effect may even be beneficial second-hand: Peterson says her husband often falls asleep while watching her spin on the drop spindle.

"What always gets me is that back then, if it wasn't made of fur or hide, this is how you got it," Peterson says, shaking her drop spindle at me. "Spinning wheels didn't show up until the Renaissance."

The Wheel of Time

When there's a lull in the store traffic, I ask Abernethy what she thinks is behind the current fiber arts renaissance.

"You've got all of these people in high-tech, office and computer, 9 to 5 type jobs," Abernethy says. "Everything's so mechanized. But spinning hasn't changed. It's so nice to feel the flow of material through your fingers."

The appeal of the material—yarn stores brimming with color, size, and texture—is often what draws people to knitting. In turn, the desire to customize material for specific projects often leads the knitter to spinning. By playing with the variables—type of wool, type of dye, technique for aligning the fibers, ply, spinning rhythm, and more—the spinner creates a truly unique piece of art.

To illustrate this point, Wallace tells me about an experiment she and a fellow spinner conducted. Each started with the same roving of white wool from Stitch Jones, dyed it with the same dyes, and knitted sweaters from the resulting yarn using identical patterns. Because of the way each woman spun her yarn, the finished sweaters looked completely different.

This variability and complexity results in a wide range of project costs, depending on the raw material, the size of the resulting yarn, and the gauge of the needles. One of the most common questions Abernethy hears at the front desk is, "how much will it cost me to make (insert project here)?"

Cost is a somewhat unfair yardstick by which to measure the true value of fiber arts. Nichols points out that for $15—the price of two tickets to the movies and a few hours of entertainment—she can purchase enough material to entertain herself for many hours, spinning and knitting in the company of friends and ending up with something handmade to show for it.

"No one gets into this to save money," Wallace adds. "You can buy a sweater or a pair of socks for much less than it would cost you to spin and knit them yourself."

An Art at Heart

It wasn't always that way, Abernethy says, and it's not always a good thing. Mega corporations can buy massive quantities of cheap raw material, pay unfair wages for manufacturing, and drive up the profit margin for mass-produced clothing. As mechanization has changed the economics of handmade goods, it has also reversed the motivation for doing it yourself.

Whereas the previous generation learned to sew and knit to save money, today's generation is often motivated by a desire for sustainable, ethical consumer choices. When you spin your own yarn and knit your own clothes, Abernethy says, you know you're not "shorting anyone along the way." From process through product, hand-spun is about as direct as it gets.

In fact, most of the women in the room have been to a shearing, and they tell me that most fiber artists eventually feel drawn to participate in the entire process: from watching the sheep get sheared and helping to skirt (clean) the fleeces, through washing and combing the raw wool, spinning it into yarn, and assembling the finished garment.

Returning to the source and immersion in the process is at the heart of the annual Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival, a weekend festival in Canby where beginning and experienced fiber artists meet to swap patterns, take workshops, browse yarn and rovings, and watch demos in shearing and skirting. There are even animal contests, with sheep and goats judged for the quality of their wool.

Spinners and knitters tend to love what they do, and they want other people to do it too. Abernethy says community is what she loves most about her job and about the fiber arts in general. Nothing gives her greater pleasure than helping a knitter sleuth out a problem with a project. She's always testing out the yarns and patterns available in her store, making corrections and adjustments in order to smooth the way for the next artist. Similarly, the spinners in the room are committed to passing on their trade to neighbors and friends, children and grandchildren.

"We're relearning how to leave a legacy," says Peterson.

They don't let me leave the store without sharing a cupcake from nearby Cupcake Jones, and trying my hand at the drop spindle.

It's not as easy as they make it look, but as I attempt to transform the strands of soft, brightly-dyed wool into finished yarn, I have to admit: I do feel a little calmer and strangely mesmerized.

"It's a slippery slope," warns Abernethy. "Next thing you know, you'll be raising sheep in the backyard."
 

For upcoming events and workshops, including Beginning Spinning with Sari Peterson, call, email, or visit Urban Fiber Arts.

Resources:

Spinnerati (Portland's Spinning Guild, meets on 2nd Tuesdays)
Oregon Wool (homegrown fiber)
Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival (OFFF) (September 24-26, 2011)
Portland Yarn Crawl
Ravelry (general fiber arts resource)