Volunteers turn mother’s yarn into ‘going away’ gift for children
March 2009
By Chris Spitzer
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ENJOYING GIFTS: Shaun McCaslin, his 5-year-old daughter Aryn, 8-year-old son Cade, and 3-year-old son Liam enjoy sweaters and pillows made from wool that belonged to their late mother and wife, Elizabeth McCaslin, of Hartville, Ohio.
Chris Spitzer
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This is the story of an outpouring of love from people united by the common thread of being part of one cloth we call humanity.
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Elizabeth McCaslin, of Hartville, Ohio, came into my life about eight years ago. She was interested in rare breeds of sheep, and we were both active in promoting the CVM/Romeldale (California Variegated Mutant) breed. She was a young, intelligent, happily married mother, and, like many of us, a “fiberholic.”
She received a diagnosis of having an incurable, fast-growing cancer. Almost immediately, it took away her voice. She could only communicate via the written word or the computer.
When pain prevented her from sleeping at night, she would e-mail me, and we would chat about our sheep. She wanted to make sweaters for her family from her sheep’s wool, to use her roving – the prepared strands of fiber from which yarns are made – to create the garments. Yet, she realized she wouldn’t be able to do so.
“Do you know of some women who could help me spin and knit my roving into sweaters for my family?” she wrote. “That would be the perfect ‘going away’ gift.”
Reading her message, tears came to my eyes, and I assured her the wish could come true.
Getting started
McCaslin had been fighting the cancer since last spring. When I started the project, I had no idea there would be less than a month to gather volunteers to spin, ply, wash and knit the sweaters. McCaslin and I met at her home in September to go through her roving.
She and her oldest son, Cade, 8, had spun up a roving together, and she wanted that incorporated into his sweater. He also wanted part of his favorite sheep, “Cow,” to be included.
For daughter Aryn, 5, a pink roving would be spun into yarn and knit into her sweater. Her youngest, 3-year-old Liam, would have a soft baby blue. For her husband, Shaun, she chose brown and a variegated gray and brown roving. I left with some 50 pounds of roving to distribute to helpers.
I appealed to my “spinner” friends for help. One of them, a member of the Medina Spinning & Weaving Guild, was instrumental in getting out the word, organizing things and distributing the roving. At least 35 people volunteered, even though none knew McCaslin.
The roving was divided up, and each spinner knew for whom she was spinning. They were to return the spun yarn within a week.