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A spirit that is not afraid

Opelika's Yarnhouse Studio teaches the trade of knitting and crochet

Cary Curtiss knits a brightly colored cowl. (Emily Enfinger / Photographer)
Cary Curtiss knits a brightly colored cowl. (Emily Enfinger / Photographer)

Cary Curtiss' Yarnhouse Studio seems like a place reminiscent of an older time.
Walking across the dark wooden floor, you'll pass a spinning wheel, complete with a spindle that would rival Sleeping Beauty's.
The doors open up to a large room where a circle of mismatched chairs have gathered, and the click of knitting needles is the only sound besides the tick of an undiscoverable clock.
A charcoal-colored-and-shaped dog snoozes on a pillow covered with a crocheted blanket.
"That's Mattie, with two T's," said Anne Sockwell, the store's weaving teacher.
"No mom, I changed it to Maddie," Curtiss said. "I got her from Four Paws a few weeks ago. She's got the best disposition for a store like this."
Curtiss, originally from Birmingham, runs the studio with the help of her mother, Sockwell.
"I actually taught my mom how to use the spinning wheel, and she taught me to crochet," Curtiss said.
The two work with an unspoken familiarity and maintain business with a system of give and take.
"I just like to be here and watch my daughter succeed," Sockwell said. "That's all any mother wants for their daughter."
Curtiss shows her mother how to work the credit-card swiper attached to her iPhone while her mother talks and jokes with customers at the front desk.
"We work well together and don't argue often," Curtiss said. "She's good with the people, and that's why she does most of the teaching."
Curtiss graduated from Auburn University after studying Asian culture studies, then traveled to Austin and attended the University of Texas.
"One thing about Austin is that it was full of yarn stores and was a really hip city," Curtiss said. "There seems to be a resurgence of the interest in making your own stuff, and there was a lot of interest of that kind in Austin. I hope it travels here."
After explaining that a sweater hanging from a chair only took two weeks to make, Curtiss and Sockwell both produce two items they have been knitting.
Both are cowls, and when finished, make a kind of infinity scarf. Curtiss' cowl, made specifically of sock bits, and Sockwell's made of a bright magenta yarn, resembles a tea doily.
They said the usual person could learn the basics of knitting or crocheting in about two hours.
In the back room, past the overflowing shelves of brightly colored yarn and sweaters, are looms where multiple projects sit waiting to be completed.
Sockwell points to different masses of yarn laying in patterns on the looms. One belongs to a 13-year-old girl, the other to a church group, and one to an Auburn professor.
Curtiss and Sockwell return to the circle of chairs and begin to knit while waiting on their group to come back from lunch.
Curtiss sits with her dog quietly curled up by her feet and works on her brightly colored cowl, eyes transfixed as if in another world.
Or, until another eager customer comes in to learn the trade.


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