Having a chat while you spin a yarn

Mary Shiels is a spinner and weaver who spends most of her timeteaching to others her craft. Olive Keogh reports

Mary Shiels took up spinning and weaving in her 40s, but her interest in handcrafts and textiles goes right back to her childhood. Mary learned to knit before she went to school. She could embroider by the time she was seven and had mastered crochet before she was nine. Her childhood also included an introduction to dyeing, which was to come in useful when she took up spinning and weaving. "My mother used to dye our summer dresses to get another year out of them, so I was well used to procedure from a young age," she says.

For 14 years Mary was the textiles instructor at Sunbeam House in Bray, Co Wicklow, which catered for young adults with disabilities. She had no formal qualification in textiles, so in 1990 she decided to embark on a two-year diploma course in spinning and dyeing at Bradford University. "The course was part-time by distance learning and while it was very hard work it was also great fun and I learned a great deal," she says.

Mary still weaves exhibition pieces for pleasure, but most of her time is now spent as a travelling tutor. She lives in Waterford, where she weaves and teaches and her husband ties fishing flies. "I've been all over Ireland and to Antwerp, to the Isle of Man several times and to Australia and Tasmania to teach. I am quite happy to take on beginners and I will go to wherever there are a group of people who want to learn," she says. "There is good interest in the craft here although it is obviously no longer a central part of every household. At one time spinning was a necessary home craft. These days we have TV and computers."

Mary Shiels stresses that those interested in learning to spin or weave do not need to fork out for expensive equipment to start with. "I can supply hand spindles and small frames for tapestry weaving so people can get a feel for it and whether or not they like it. Spinning is a very therapeutic activity and when you get good at it, it is very sociable, as you can chat as you spin," she says.

• Mary Shiels can be contacted at (051) 292479 or e-mail flyweave@iol.ie