Amanda Hartrick of East Aurora spins with a drop spindle while Doreen Kelly of West Seneca and Peter Schruben of Holland use spinning wheels. Members of the Common Threads, a guild for spinners and dyers, meet next to The Hull House the second Sunday of the month. Photos by James Smerecak. Purchase color photos at www.BeeNews.com Gandhi once said that all of India should spend time every day using a spinning wheel, for productivity and meditation.

More than half a century later, the idea is catching on in America, and many women describe it in the same way Gandhi once did.

“Life is so busy and hectic and electronic,” said Doreen Kelly, a West Seneca resident and member of a spinners guild. “It’s [spinning] like meditation. It’s so relaxing.”

The group Common Threads, a guild for spinners and dyers, formed in January and quickly grew to more than 60 members, proving that the women, and a few men, of Western New York were eager for its formation.

Kathy Malachowski, a member of Common Threads, looks at a black-eyed Susan in the group’s natural dye garden. Members will use the plants to dye their finished, spun yarn. They come from across the region to meet from 1 to 4 p.m. the second Sunday of every month inside the Victorian house adjacent to the Hull Family Home and Farmstead, 5976 Genesee Road, Lancaster. When it’s nice weather, they spin outside.

There are no other spinning guilds in WNY; however, there is a weavers guild, a close cousin to spinning, to which a few of the Common Threads members also belong.

To advertise, they put their newly formed group on a yarn-based social networking site (yes, there is such a thing), and to their surprise, many showed up for their first meeting.

It’s been growing every since.

On the groups’ blog, www.commonthreadsguild. blogspot.com., one post features a bumper sticker type saying poking fun at their infatuation: “Spinning. Because knitting isn’t weird enough.”

Another could read: Spinning. What’s the appeal?

Turns out, lots.

Aside from being described as “relaxing,” “therapeutic” and “meditative” (one could also add, “Gandhian”), many enjoy the historical connection, not only for spinning, but also for dyeing.

Founder Phyllis Vasbinder, a North Tonawanda resident, is particularly interested in natural dyes, and she points out that Betsy Ross used natural dyes for the American flag.

Cleopatra had the sails of her ship dyed purple. Cave men, and women, used mineral dyes to paint pictures on their walls and bodies. Synthetic dyes have only been used since 1856, when they were invented.

Vasbinder tends a dye garden behind the Victorian house, where she grows the plants needed for her dyes: Japanese indigo, madder, weld, pokeberry, tansy, cosmos and goldenrod will produce enough color for a yarn rainbow. And it’s all natural.

With the local food push, part of the larger “green” movement, many people are looking for ways to live simpler, more natural lives, closer to the way Mother Earth intended, and that includes dyeing and spinning, says Erica Fire, one of the founding members.

But for Fire, who works as the costume director in the theatre department at Buffalo State College, spinning’s appeal is all about the way fiber feels.

“There’s very little in our modern life that is truly tactile,” she says. “The fiber flowing through your fingers is a very calming, rhythmic activity, almost like mediation. It’s very different from any other pursuit.”

Charlene Spoth, owner of Kelkenburg Farm in Clarence Center, has owned sheep her entire life. About 10 years ago, she began spinning their wool. She too enjoys physically working with fiber.

“To produce something with your hands is very rewarding,” she said. “It’s very stress-relieving and satisfying.”

Spinning brings control, too, says Fire. You can control the design, color and texture. And you can enter the process at whatever point you wish — from actually shearing wool off sheep to buying pre-washed and carded fiber (roving) from the store — control is entirely personalized.

Another reason to spin: Spinning is simple. Life is not.

“It slows things down, which we need in an otherwise fast-paced world,” says Fire.

Slow is right. Whereas driving to the store and buying a sweater could take half an hour round trip, spinning enough yarn to make a sweater, and then actually knitting or crocheting it, could take as many as 200 hours.

Fire sometimes wonders how it was that anyone in history was fully clothed, considering how time-consuming, and expensive, it was to dress one’s family via spinning.

“I cannot imagine having to do it to keep your family warm,” she says. “It’s a heck of a lot of work.”

But she loves it. For her wedding, she wore a shawl she spun from the fur of “the best bunny in the world,” her angora rabbit named Rusty.

One member of Common Threads, Doreen Kelly, made a business out of custom-spinning dog hair — which is much more difficult to work with than the standard wool. Whereas wool has little barbs that catch together, dog hair tends to be short and slippery.

Her two fluffy collie dogs inspired her to begin spinning their hair eight years ago, and today, she’s perfected the process.

“I feel like I’m born in the wrong century,” says Kelly, who formerly owned a horse and carriage service in downtown Buffalo.

She gets online orders from all over the country and WNY, not only for dog hair but also for cats and even some exotic animals.

She’s one of only a few people in the United States who custom spins animal hair as a business. Scarves, hats, pillows, keepsake hearts and yarn are a few of the things she makes.

“I found my little niche in life,” she says. “I get the most wonderful thank-you notes; people who are grateful they always have a little piece of their dog with them. This is the ultimate making-people feel- happy.”

It’s so popular she has a backlog of orders. Her most recent was from Barnum & Bailey Circus. They want yarn spun from the mane of their white lion.

“I was expecting it to smell,” says Kelly of the hair she’s still spinning. “But it doesn’t.”

When it’s finished, she’ll have transformed the mound of “very coarse” lion hair into yarn — which is the product, of course, but not the purpose.

That is much more lofty.

Common Threads’ next regular meeting will be Sunday, Sept. 12. To learn more, visit www.commonthreadsguild. blogspot.com.

Spoth will be hosting a “dye d a y, ” starting at 10 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 29 at Kelkenburg Farm, 9300 Wolcott Road, Clarence Center, to demonstrate dyeing fiber. Anyone is welcome.