It is a raw March afternoon outside when several women — and one young man — gather at Gestalt Studios to spin. Not a spin class — spinning yarn, like Sleeping Beauty in the fairy tale.

It is a get together of the Yellowstone Spinners and Weavers Guild. 

Bev Huggins has spun off and on for more than 30 years. She caught the bug when she went to a mountain man rendevous with her husband and saw someone in front of a tepee spinning with a drop spindle. Huggins purchased a spindle from the vendor, who, along with some other attendees, taught her to spin. She moved from the simple spindle to a traditional Ashford spinning wheel and uses a pint-sized electric model when she is on the road. It fits in a box the size of an ice cream container and she can use it in the pickup truck. “If I’m not driving,” she teases.

The other spinners have similar wheels, like Huggins’ Ashford model. They have pedals that the user pumps, similar to a treadle sewing machine. 

“There is a learning curve,” chimes in Deana Baker, of Cody. “At first it can be frustrating.” It becomes a matter of hand-eye coordination.

Baker was fascinated by a spinning wheel one of her high school teachers had, but she didn’t start spinning until 2003 or so. She started with a drop spindle she found on eBay. Because she works for a veterinarian, the first fiber Baker spun was dog hair. Now she, too, has a traditional wheel. Today it is changing a natural wool batt into a brown-gray yarn. The yarn might be woven into a project on a loom, or it could be used in her knitting.

Huggins crochets with her yarn, and keeps her mother supplied with crochet yarn as well.

But Toni French, who is working on a multi-colored wool silk blend, was a weaver before she learned to spin her own yarn for that art. She has several looms, from a tapestry or beading loom to a rigid heddle model. Her yarn is often made into scarves or blankets.

“One fiber method leads to another. We raised sheep when I was a child, so [after she learned to weave] I bought a wheel and a book,” French recalled. Later, she found the guild and joined. The yarn is frustrating her this day.

“I don’t practice enough so my yarn is a little more ...,” she searches for the right term, “... textured.”

An experienced spinner can create very uniform yarn with an even diameter while novices or those who are out of practice may turn out a beautiful but rather lumpy product.

Lumpy is putting it mildly for the yarn Bobbie Brown is taking off her bobbin. Her grandchildren were working on the wheel and she is removing their product so she can begin her own.

Asked how she got started spinning, Brown points at Mary Vogel — one of the original guild members — and laughs, “It’s her fault. Thirty years ago she gave me this spinning wheel. I was already a knitter.” 

Brown does a lot of art teaching, including spinning. She has taught her grandchildren, given classes and demonstrations for the Powell Recreation District and at the Powell Library.

“It’s good to know the next generation will know how to do this,” she said, recalling a recent visit with a young woman who now knits because Brown taught her, even though Brown does not remember the lessons.

Brown knits socks, hats and mittens. The fiber arts helped fill the void left when she, as a musician, moved to Wyoming and found it devoid of opera opportunities. “I like fiber art,” she said. “It has color and texture, like music.” In addition, Brown draws, paints, throws pots and sculpts.

“I have a short attention span,” she teases.

Her fiber comes from all over. Some guild members keep alpacas and share the fiber harvested from the animals. Brown also visits a sheep farmer in Fromberg, Montana, and gets wool from her, and she kept a retired 4-H project sheep for a long time. That sheep was a Shetland cross and, although the animal has long since passed away, there remains three tubs of her wool. From time to time, Brown stops on the side of the road to collect milkweed or other naturally occurring fibers that catch her eye.

“Sometimes it just follows you home, like zucchini,” she explains.

The Tuesday afternoon begins to slip away while the ladies — the young man has driven Vogel home — talk about the wildlife that visit their yards, the way things were when they were in high school, kids, grandchildren, doctors and dentists, surgeries and dogs. The talk fades away and the sounds in the sunlit room are the soft whirr of the wheels and the clack of pedals. Surrounded by the ancient art they are keeping alive, the women spin a web of companionship around themselves, and weave a tapestry of friends bound together by the threads of their craft.