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Nina Aly Elshiekh, a self-taught spinner, won't be dropping her spindle, because after twisting the spindle, she anchors it between her knees, then drafts her fiber upward.

"I love to work with my hands," she says.

"The irony," she says, "is that my father was a professor in the textiles school at N.C. State." He was part of the Mars mission research team, "weaving carbon fibers and working on various things they could use on shuttle missions to Mars," she says.

And yet, she says, he showed his students the drop spindle and how to use it.

A spinning wheel is essentially an elaborate spindle, with a big wheel and treadle providing the twist, and a bobbin to automatically gather the spun fiber, so that the spinner does not have to stop to wind.

"It's a very relaxing, soothing sort of thing to do. It's a rhythmic motion, the constant sound of the wheel is pleasant," says Marilyn Mudge, whose interest in spinning developed from her love of knitting and interest in wool production. "And it's nice to feel like you're doing something that women have done through the ages."

Plying

Plying, or twisting, two or more singles together balances and strengthens the fiber.

Spinners can spin alone, but together, their energy creates strength.

While the wheels whir in one room at Avillion Farms, Elaina Kenyon's farm in Apex, other members of the Twisted Threads Fiber Arts Guild gather in a bedroom to crochet a blue edging onto a patchwork blanket.

"This one is from my Jacob ewe, Cinnamon -- she was one of my favorites and I lost her last year," says Joy Thomas of Sunrise Farms in Creedmoor, pointing to a square. "She was spotted. ... I took the light and the dark and spun them separately, then I plied them together. Then I put in some little bumps, so when it's knitted up, then it gives it a tweed appearance."

Each square has a story. And the squares have a common bond: The yarn was hand-spun, then handcrafted -- by knitting, crocheting or weaving.

The squares came together to comfort a spinner some of them barely knew. When Maury Mills, who had been a member of the guild for just a few months, found out in December that she had a brain tumor, Judy Tysmans cast out a thread: Let's make a lap blanket for Maury.

The virtual threads became actual threads. A spinner from Wilmington mailed a square. KimRae Mikkelsen taught herself how to weave on a hand loom to make her square. Jackie Ligtenberg, who drove in from Granville County, learned to crochet left-handed to help finish the border. During the course of two meetings, their 24 squares were joined. The lap blanket had grown to a queen-size comforter.

The hand-spun wools enveloped Maury Mills, leaving her unable to say much more than "Thank you. You all overwhelm me."

The single members were plied together even more firmly.

"That's the beauty of fiber," Pagano says. "It's the development of people into civilization. And that's fascinating. It's fabulous."

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