YATES CENTER Martha Fitzmaurice lifted a narrow bundle of soft, white wool with her right hand, pulling sections toward her left hand whose nimble fingers grabbed small amounts, adding tiny portions to a thin, twisting thread in a process called drafting. The spinning wheel pulled the new thread through an orifice and wrapped it around a bobbin.
Fitzmaurice, wearing blue socks, alternately pressed the pedals on the floor to treadle the spinning wheel at a comfortable speed. She doesnt like to wear shoes when she spins, she explained.
Fitzmaurice bobbed as each of her limbs moved in a different direction: her feet up and down, her hands back and forth. After more than 26 years of spinning, the movements come automatically. She can even carry on a conversation at the same time.
I talk to the spinning wheel. I talk to the dog, she said. Spinning is soothing. If I cant sleep at 2 oclock in the morning, Ill go spin for an hour. Then Im relaxed. A friend told me I could probably spin in my sleep.
People think you can just grab on to the thread and pump the pedals like anything. They think they can just zip, zip zip. But you have to take it slow and easy. If you go a little slower and you keep your fingers up there toward the orifice, youll learn how to pull it. Your hands become coordinated.
It didnt start out that way, of course.
The first wool I ever spun was horrible. It was bumpy and lumpy and overspun. Horrible, she said. I gave it away. I was at the chiropractor and this lady said, I would like to know somebody that had some wool that was overspun. Now they call it designer knit. I cant believe they actually do that on purpose.
Spinning is an ancient textile art, likely dating back to the Stone Age. The drawing out and twisting of natural fibers like flax (linen), cotton or silk first was done by hand, then using tools like a winding stick or spindle. The spinning wheel was invented in India in the Middle Ages.
Weaving also has roots in the earliest of human history, with mats, baskets and perhaps even shelters believed to have been woven during the Stone Age.
Now, hand spinning and weaving are considered among the nearly lost arts. Few today make their own clothes; even fewer make their own yarn. But its becoming more popular at art fairs and farmers markets, with artisans intrigued by exotic fibers like alpaca, angora or camel. Others are drawn by the calming, rhythmic and meditative effects of spinning.
Like any art, hand spinning and weaving take education and practice. Fitzmaurice wants to use her experience to teach others how to spin and weave. Shes set up equipment in a small office at the Yates Center Town Hall, a former church now used as a community center, where she offers lessons. She has two small, modern spinning wheels and at least three different types of looms, among other items, for her classes.
WHEN SHE was around age 8, Fitzmaurice saw a huge floor loom at the home of a family friend. It fascinated her. The woman gave her a brief lesson and let her weave just a little bit. She was hooked.
But it would take decades before shed learn how to spin and weave. Life seemed to have other plans. She got married and raised two sons, got divorced and remarried at age 55.
Less than a year after her second marriage, Fitzmaurice and her new husband, Don, drove through Oklahoma for a chicken swap meet. They passed a weaving business, which prompted her to say, Ive always wanted to spin and weave. Don pulled into the shop and they left with a loom and an Ashford spinning wheel, along with two instruction books because Oklahoma was too far to drive for lessons. The couple lived near Mont Ida, a mostly Amish community in southwest Anderson County. Fitzmaurice isnt Amish, but she became close friends with many local residents and for 20 years served as a driver to transport the Amish, whose religious beliefs dont allow them to drive vehicles.
Fitzmaurice eventually took a weaving lesson at a Lawrence business, the Yarn Barn, where she still buys supplies and textiles.
