"The invention of the spindle, which made possible the utilization of the softer textile fibers can undoubtedly be considered one of the greatest inventions in the history of the world. Its actual effect on human progress is beyond all calculation."

The Textile Arts by Verla Birrell (1959)

A wooden spindle spins from a strand of yarn as Mary Ann Pagano's hands dance along the fiber at the other end, turning a fluff of wool into a sturdy thread.

"It's just a ballet. Each hand has to know enough to continue to dance together," she explains to a group of eight women learning to spin with a drop spindle at Yarns etc. in Carrboro.

Describing the first time she saw a spinner stick a spindle into a fluff of wool and pull out a thread - "It doesn't have form, it doesn't have strength and then whoosh. There it is"-- Pagano's excitement is still evident. "It was magic. I thought, 'I want to learn to do that.' "

The spinners, all looking slightly cross-eyed as they focus on the fiber forming under their hands, are learning two moves: Drafting the fibers, then twisting them into yarn. The spindle helps them to anchor and store the yarn.

A spindle is made up of a stick and a disk, called a whorl. At the top of the stick is a hook to hold the fiber. The spinner twists the spindle, something like turning a top, to put twist into the fiber. The whorl adds weight, so that once the spinner twists it, the stick continues to spin, leaving the spinner's hands free to draft, or thin out, the fiber.

Between the twisted thread and the supply of unspun wool is a loosened area of wool, called a drafting triangle. The yarn is drafted and the twist is released into the drafted fibers, to create more yarn. When the spinner has made so much yarn that her arm cannot stretch any farther, she winds the yarn around the stick.

Drafting

"That thing you're doing with your right hand is called drafting."

-- Marilyn Mudge, spinner

Spinners are drafted into this ancient art for various reasons.

Pagano's own teacher, Elaine Ross, who operates Yarns etc. and Spinner's Ridge in Greensboro, became interested in the craft when she saw spinners at Old Salem. When she later acquired her husband's 92-year-old grandmother's wheel -- which had belonged to his grandmother's great-grandmother -- she learned to spin on it. That was almost 20 years ago. Ross, who is about to retire, is drawn to spinning's link to past generations, as well as its future possibilities.

"I spin every day," she says. "I enjoy it so much. There are so many beautiful fibers to spin."

Back in Carrboro, Francesca Filardo admits that she loves fabulous yarns. "Instead of getting into knitting, I got into yarn," she says. "So I decided to make yarn." Looking ruefully at her lightly packed spindle, she says, "It might actually be more work than I wanted to get into."

Prepared fibers cost money. Big money.

"When I spent $120 on yarn for a sweater, I knew I had to do something," confides Nancy Shroyer, president of the Twisted Threads Fiber Arts Guild. "So I learned how to spin."

Pagano notes that spinning "doesn't cost a lot of money ... You can just follow sheep around and pick up tufts of wool."

Twisting

"What you're doing is -- this is physics here -- you're putting energy into it ... When your spindle's spinning, then it's all sort of out of your control unless you have control. That's why you just want to keep working with your hands, twisting, twist, twist, twist, twist."

-- Mary Ann Pagano

If you don't twist enough -- thunk! The drop spindle hits the floor as the fiber separates.

"People say that's why they call them drop spindles," Pagano says, "but ... they call them drop spindles because as you spin the thread, the spindle drops."

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."