Spinning a community of yarn

WADESBORO — Studio 256 opened in 2021, after the store’s owner, Heather Edwards, moved to Wadesboro the year before. Without knowing anyone, and without her community of crafters due to the pandemic, she sought to create one.

“When 2020 happened, I had nobody. I had just moved here,” Edwards explained. “I started missing my community of people that I was getting with because we all kind of dispersed and nobody was getting together because everybody had fears with COVID.”

There were multiple knitting and yarn groups in Charlotte, and the passing of her sister led to the opening of the store in September of 2021.

“When we opened the store in September of ’21, it was after my sister had passed away at the age of 53,” Edwards said. “And I wasn’t in a good place. So, my husband, he knew I needed something.”

Since the opening of the store, Tuesdays were set as a community night, starting as a way for Edwards to create her own community around yarn. Anyone, of any age, could go to the store and work alongside other artisans in a therapeutic, likeminded group.

“So, the community nights were more for me to have a community of people that I could connect with because I was having a real need for that connection,” explained Edwards. “That’s how they [Tuesday Community Nights] came to be, it was my strong need for community and likeminded people. “

The community formed and benefitted others in Wadesboro. Those interested in working with yarn congregated around Studio 256, for their love of yarn and a desire for a community around the craft. Many, including Edwards, saw it as a therapeutic group both mentally and physically.

“I had one lady, she came in and goes ‘I got two therapy sessions in one day,’” Edwards said. “Because she can come in and just talk and release things. And it doesn’t go anywhere. I get where they’re coming from, and I understand, and I know that yarn is helpful…There’s a therapy to working with yarn. It really helps with stress relief; it’s helped with so many things for the community.”

Working with yarn has proven to be physically therapeutic for those with arthritis or other disabilities that effect the hands.

“It helped me with my hands. I have a disability in my hands, and it [working with yarn] helps keep them active and moving and not stiffening and not swelling,” Edwards described. “You can help people, like if they’ve got arthritis or tendinitis or anything in their hands. I can kind of help them, show them different things that they can do as far as playing with yarn to help them not have the pains.”

Edwards’s help doesn’t end there. Once a week, for one hour a day, she gives one-on-one lessons for both adults and children. The lessons help build better skills, such as reading patterns or counting stitches.

“I call it my After School Meet-Ups. I started it as something for kids, but then adults wanted to do it,” Edwards told. “It’s one hour a week. I like it to be one-on-one, no more than two people [for lessons] doing the same type of activity, because I want to be able to offer really good lessons. I’ll teach them how to do simple patterns and read a pattern, read a graph, and read what the stitches mean.”

Lessons start with creating a small square much as a washcloth, to help students learn to count stitches and keep it in a square. From there, they can move to amigurumi, small caricatures and dolls.

“My goal is to teach the lost arts, and if I help someone along the way with whatever’s angsting them or hurting them, then that’s a positive plus for me because I get where they’re coming from,” Edwards said.

Moving forward, Studio 256 may see the addition of more equipment, such as looms and spindles to help the community with their crafts.

“My future plans for the store for this year,” Edwards began, “are to phase out the fabric side of things. I’m going to be focusing on the yarn and fiber, and looms and spindles, things of that nature is the direction that my goad is to go in. Where if you need fiber, to do spinning or weaving, I have that.”

September will also see the Fiber Arts Festival, which Edwards has been helping set up at the Ray Shelton Ballfield. There will be vendors, artisans, and instructors teaching a multitude of fabric related crafting.

“In September, I have worked on and we’re going to have a fiber festival, a fiber arts festival,” Edwards explained. “It’s going to be September 22-23 of this year, and going to be right in the uptown area…We’re going to have vendors and instructors from all over the area. You can learn just about anything that you want from felting to knitting to crocheting to tatting, you name it. Weaving, spinning, art spinning, art weaving, anything that you can imagine is my goal to have for instructors.”

The event also may have animals for a shearing demonstration, among the vendors and instructors from as far as Texas.

Studio 256 can be found in uptown Wadesboro at 106 S Greene St, Wadesboro, NC 28170, or their website at https://studio256.online/.