Homestead
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Eight Maine women will race the clock to shear a sheep, spin its wool and knit a sweater in one day on Saturday.
Known as the Mainely Spinners, they’ve been training for months to compete in the International Back to Back Competition to raise money for cancer charities. They aim to put the sweater on in less than 10 hours.
The Bangor event also hopes to raise awareness about working with wool, attract young people interested in fiber and give them a chance to try spinning equipment.
Trying to take wool from a sheep’s back to a finished garment as fast as possible isn’t a new challenge: in 1811, English onlookers bet 1,000 pounds on whether it was possible to shear a sheep and create a coat in one day. Five thousand people watched as it was completed in 13 hours, the Bangor event’s organizers said in a press release.
The current international challenge started in 1992, and came to Maine about seven years ago when Stacy Wilson, a former member of a California team, recruited helpers at an annual fiber event and taught some of them to spin. One other American team participates, from New Hampshire.
The Maine team’s first try took 16 hours, but they have since shaved their time down to 10 hours and 36 minutes. Last year they placed third out of nine in the international competition.
“The camaraderie is great, and we enjoy it, even though it’s grueling at times,” volunteer Janet Delaney said. “If we can get down below nine hours, I’d be ecstatic.”
This year, they’re fundraising for Sarah’s House, a Holden nonprofit that provides free, comfortable lodging and support for cancer patients and their caregivers who travel 30 miles or more to Bangor for treatment.
The team practices and develops strategies together for most of the year, running time trials on their spinning wheels and testing the most efficient methods to start knitting. The more experience they gain, the thinner the yarn they spin, meaning their sweaters have diminished in size over time.
Students from the College of the Atlantic attended last year’s event to experiment with spinning and a few will help out this year. Most of the team is currently gray-haired and wants to attract more young people to the fiber arts.
That can be difficult for working-age people with limited availability, Delaney said, but Mainely Spinners is trying to solve that challenge by holding public demonstrations and meeting on Saturdays.
Three spinning wheels will be available for the public to try on Saturday at the Penobscot County Extension Office at 307 Maine Ave. in Bangor. The race begins at 8 a.m., when a local ram named Jarvis will be shorn with manual scissor shears.
The challenge will be livestreamed on the group’s Facebook page, Mainely Spinners, which is also hosting an online auction of knitted items as part of its fundraising. More handknit items will be available to purchase in person on Saturday and last year’s completed sweater will be raffled off.
