By Don Murtha
Conney Beaudry of Scotts Mills gets her kicks out of spinning. “I’m an addict,” she said.
When she is not at her part-time job at the Mount Angel Library, she sits at her spinning wheel hour-after-hour spinning yards and yards of fine yarn.
“Spinning puts me in a whole new world,” she said. “It’s relaxing and keeps my hands busy constantly. I love it.”
Before she started spinning, Beaudry was raising llamas, shearing them and sending the wool off to other spinners.
“I had all this wool and I knew I should be doing something with it myself,” she said
Then a friend introduced her to spinning. “I took a class and I was hooked,” she said.
She started spinning two years ago when she bought her first of two spinning wheels.
There is much to learn about spinning, but once you get started, she said, “It’s like riding a bike. You don’t have to think about it, it just goes.”
Eager to learn all she can about spinning, she takes classes, reads books and meets with other spinners.
“There are such a variety of fibers, from coarse to extra fine,” she said, “and every fiber requires different spinning.”
Sheep have barbed wool which makes it coarse. Llama and alpaca are hair like human hair, very smooth and soft.
“Nothing compares to llama, alpaca and cashmere,” she said. “Yak wool from Tibet and silk worm fiber from Asia are the most expensive and the most exotic.”
Beaudry is a member of the Aurora Colony Hand Spinning Guild, which meets in Aurora the third Thursday of the every month.
The last meeting was a “dye day,” where the members talked about dyes and dyeing the fibers.
“I have been using natural dyes from plants like elderberry, firs, pansies, onion skin and other natural sources,” she said. “You can even use Kool-Aid as a dye such as lemon, lime, orange or whatever.”
The Aurora Colony Hand Spinning Guild holds a Spinning Wheel Show Case in March at the Aurora Museum.
“To be part of it you have to wear a period costume with a full bonnet, apron and full long dress,” she said.
The Guild meetings are open to all spinners who want to learn new techniques or solve problems and it holds “Fiber Fairs” where varieties of fibers, some from local farms are sold. “I always bring plenty of money so I can buy plenty of wool to process,” she said.
Her latest significant purchase was not wool. Beaudry has a 200-year-old antique spinning wheel she bought from a fellow spinner. There are markings on it indicating it came from Norway.
“It has been used so much there is evident wear on the pedal and some parts have been replaced,” she said,” But the basic spinning wheel is intact and I use it every day along with my other spinning wheel.”
She recently started knitting with her own yarn. So far, she has knit a cap, a scarf and a hot pad. “I’m just beginning to knit and I only do it for myself so far. Maybe I’ll sell things later.”
