PICTURE BUTTE, Alta. – Connie Carlson is a spinning addict.
In fact, she is so fanatical about fibre arts that her husband Dave invented a special wheel so she can stay in shape as she spins.
Leaning back in a comfortable lawn chair, she pedals on a converted exercise bicycle with a retrofitted spinning unit. The Fort Macleod couple named it the spinaciser and have already sold about 20 for $200 each.
“We all have exercise bikes in the garage,” Connie said, as she demonstrated her art at the southern Alberta sheep show in Picture Butte.
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She and Dave haunt garage sales and Salvation Army stores for gently used bikes. Some have odometres so people can see how far they have pedalled as they spin.
The new design’s advantage over the traditional wheel is that the spinner never has to take her hands off the wool because the wheel is controlled with the foot pedals.
The Carlsons focus their lives around fibre. Dave’s full-time job is shearing about 13,000 sheep, 1,500 alpacas and 1,000 llamas each year.
For the last 25 years Connie has sold yarn and taught spinning, knitting and other fibre arts.
At their Y-Knot Farm, she breeds a variety of livestock exclusively for fibre. She crossbreeds her sheep for fine, long wool and shears her llamas, alpacas, angora goats and rabbits. She also collects down from the undercoat of the family dog, a Golden Retriever-Samoyed cross. She calls the product canine cashmere.
Dedicated spinners seek out new and interesting fibres for blends of natural colours and textures.
Every species produces wool of value. For example, Suffolk sheep wool is fluffy and ideal for quilt bats, while Merinos produce fine wool for high end garments.
Connie is also one of the few consumers happy to see oil prices increase.
“When oil prices go up, so do synthetic fibres prices because they are all petroleum based. The natural fibres are going to be more popular as oil prices go up.”
In addition to her work at home, Carlson enters competitions, including an internationally timed event called Back to Back. A team of eight shears a sheep, spins the wool and knits a basic sweater. Held at sites around the world on the same day each spring, teams gather to work and talk fibre. A Scottish team that completed a product in a little more than five hours holds the record. Her team has managed to complete the contest in about 15 hours. The next competition is next May 14.
She has also joined a growing number of fibre artists who have taken their ancient art into cyberspace so spinners, weavers and knitters from all over the world can chat on-line anytime.
“You can go into the guild meeting of the internet. Spinners are hermits in the world without the internet. We lock the doors so we can spin,” she said.
