Wool Spinning Demo at Monticello Museum

Kris (Riese) Peterson will demonstrate spinning wool at the Monticello Area Historical Society Museum. Kris, the daughter of Ed & Donna Riese, graduated from Monticello HS in 1976. She has a BFA in theater from UW-La Crosse and an MFA in Costume and Technology from Florida State University.

Kris states her first brush with spinning wool was as a child going by the old Woolen Mill every day on her way to town. “I heard a lot of the stories and had ancestors that worked at the mill like many others in the area.” She relates; the first person she saw at a wheel was at the Rock River Thresheree. “There was a lady that came every year who spun dog hair. I fell in love with the mesmerizing motion of the wheel and her hands drawing the fiber and how it formed yarn.”

Kris did not get into spinning until adulthood, when it came up in a graduate fiber class. That she states, “really lit the fire!” She saw an online ad for a spinning wheel for sale at a decent price and bought it. “I have learned to process, prep, spin, ply, and dye fibers of many kinds…It’s my happy place!”

Kris will have samples of assorted fibers and hand tools to touch, try, and compare.

The Monticello Area Historical Museum is open Saturdays from 10 am – 2 pm and admission is free.