43
ROUND SHE GOES
By Kalea Hall
CANFIELD
Janice Graham is allergic to wool.
But that doesn’t stop her from spinning at the Canfield Fair.
The Farrell, Pa., resident sticks her gloves on and gets to work.
A crowd started to approach as she slowly tapped the pedal with her foot and fed wool through for it to go onto a bobbin.
Her effortless motions made spectators stand in awe.
“Anytime I can sit here and spin like this I am fine,” she said. “It’s great fun. It’s never boring.”
While she spins outside the Sheep Barn at the fair, she tells children and adults about her process of spinning.
First, she has to get the wool. She gets it from the Canfield Fair sheep and elsewhere. On Sunday, Graham used a Southdown sheep’s wool.
“It’s really good wool,” she said. “It’s really elastic.”
And then the process begins to make it clean because no greasy wool touches her wheel.
Sometimes the wool has to get washed 10 times or more depending on how dirty it is. She has found everything from a stick to green paint in the wool. Using dish soap, Graham washes the wool pieces one at a time and makes sure to check the temperature. Wool is temperamental and quickly can change to felt if the temperature isn’t right.
After the washing is done, she brushes and brushes.
She can choose to dye the wool after cleaning it or after spinning it.
“I use this real expensive dye called Kool-Aid,” Graham told the crowd. “I can get some really funny colors with Kool-Aid.”
She admits the process of spinning is awkward at first, but after awhile people get the hang of it. She’s been spinning for seven years and for four years at the fair. She took over for a woman who spun at the fair for 41 years. While Graham was spinning, several people still came up to ask her about the famous Kay Thomas.
Graham recalled how she constantly asked Thomas questions about spinning. Looking back on it, she thinks some of her questions were real doozies.
“There is no dumb question,” Graham said. “There’s so much involved that people do not know.”
Graham spins her wool to a thin piece of yarn after she grabs some locks from a bag next to her. It appears like a cloud is sitting in her hand just waiting to become a part of someone’s closet or bedding.
People use Graham’s wool to knit, weave and crochet. In just a couple of hours from the start of spinning, she can have a bobbin of wool ready to go.
“It’s worth it,” she said. “You are making something unique.”
Graham is spinning outside Sheep Barn No. 36 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with some of her wool for sale.