Earth Week: Back to Back Wool Challenge

The COA Spinsters, including professor Susan Letcher and students, compete with teams of wool crafters worldwide to create a sweater directly from a sheep’s back to a human’s back.

The Spinsters invite all to come cheer them on throughout the day and help raise funds for Sarah’s House, a compassionate “home away from home” for cancer patients and their caregivers in the Bangor area, by purchasing t-shirts and handmade artwork and crafts by COA students.
The event begins with a sheep shearing at 8 a.m. From there, the team of seven knitters will rotate between spinning the wool into double-strand yarn and knitting the sweater pieces together. Letcher expects the effort to last late into the evening. The challenge kicks off a series of events for Earth Week at the college.
“Raising money for cancer care and research has been a central part of the challenge since its founding, and Sarah’s House is just a really wonderful place to support,” Letcher said. “It’s also a great opportunity to showcase local fiber arts and fiber production.”
The International Back to Back Wool Challenge is orchestrated by Tarndwarncoort, a sheep farm in South Western Victoria, Australia. Each team consists of a blade shearer, a country-of-origin sheep, and seven hand spinners (with spinning wheels) and knitters who follow identical challenge rules and patterns to knit an adult-size sweater. The asynchronous competition is held from Jan. 1 through June each year. A total of eight teams competed in 2025, including Bangor’s The Mainely Spinners, with the San Diego County Spinners setting a new USA record time of 7:12:05.
“We won’t make anywhere near that time; I think what we’re aiming for is under 16 hours,” Letcher said. “But, The Mainely Spinners have won the fundraising championship in the past, so we’re hoping to give them a run for their money in that.”
Representatives from Tarndwarncoort confirmed that this will be the first year for a college team to compete in the challenge, which Letcher said felt special for the challenge’s 30th year. The collaboration needed to succeed, as well as the sustainable focus, both suit COA very well, she said.
“There’s so much of what we do at the college we can’t really do alone, and no single person can shear a sheep, spin the wool, and get a sweater in a day. But you put a good team together and they can do it,” Letcher said. “A lot of people at the college are knitters or crocheters, and many are interested in where that fiber comes from, what its lifetime is, and what its biodegradability is. That focus on local resources, sustainability, handwork, and creating something collectively with our own hands is really valuable.”