A Spinner’s Dozen: 14 Darn Useful Tools, By Stephenie Gaustad

A Spinner’s Dozen: 14 Darn Useful Tools

What the heck is a heck? In A Spinner’s Dozen: 14 Darn Useful Tools, the late Stephenie Gaustad shines a loving, practical light on the tools that help spinners manage fiber and yarn with more consistency, ease, and joy.

Drawing on decades of deep experience and curiosity, Stephenie guides readers through the what, why, and how of fiber and yarn management tools she found truly indispensable. These are tools that quietly do the work — improving consistency, supporting good spinning habits, and connecting us to generations of spinners who came before us. Many are old, time-tested tools, and all are still very much worth knowing today.

The book is filled with Stephenie’s own hand-drawn illustrations, spinning stories, and hard-earned wisdom, making it both a wonderful reference and a pleasure to read. It’s the kind of book you keep close to your wheel, return to often, and hear her voice in every page.

About the author

For more than 45 years, Stephenie Gaustad educated and delighted fiber artists through her classes, articles, illustrations, and books on spinning, dyeing, and weaving. Known for her legendary knowledge, warmth, humor, and love of fiber minutiae, she inspired countless spinners and earned a beloved place among the most respected teachers and mentors in the fiber arts world. She delighted in traveling to teach, poking through attics for old tools, sharing obscure facts, and bringing people together through fiber.

A Spinner’s Dozen stands as part of Stephenie’s lasting legacy — a generous, practical, and joyful gift to spinners everywhere.