Grace Tully’s life so far is not a fairy tale. From growing up on an Iowa farm, moving around the country as an adult, and working a couple decades at the University of Iowa, none of it has that glass-slipper quality.

But interestingly, her art – spinning, weaving, knitting, sewing -- is exactly the stuff of fairy tales. Recall Rumpelstiltskin and Sleeping Beauty, both stories in which young women find themselves in mortal danger thanks to the then-common task of spinning, then end up spending happily ever after with a royal husband.

Creating thread from plant and animal fiber, then weaving it into cloth or knitting it into clothing, has long been a human necessity. We just don’t give it much thought because these processes, once the domain of commercial guilds and cottage industries, were mechanized in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.

“Think of your towels, curtains, blankets, rugs and clothing,” Grace says. “I make the same articles but at a slower, human pace that allows me to have joy in the fibers and tools I use to knit, sew, spin and weave.”

Finding a Passion

Grace traces her love of fiber back to age 6 or 7 when she began making potholders out of loops. A few years later she taught herself to knit, creating a wallet out of crochet cotton that she used until it fell apart during high school. By that time, her sewing had progressed from hemming dish towels to making her own clothes.

Maybe that wasn’t so uncommon for girls in the 1960s and 70s; it was a crafty time, after all. But probably most kids wouldn’t have thought to weave themselves a fort out of twine and weeds.

“Growing up on a farm, at that time your bales were all tied with twine, so we would take the twine and braid pony bridles and things out of that,” she says. “One place that we lived had an orchard. We would find a group of trees, and we would wind the baler twine lower to higher around the trees, and then we would go out and pull button weeds from the corn and weave them up and down to make walls between the trees.”

Her mind already saw the world in warp and weft.

As a high school student, Grace was absorbed in theater; she joined the Iowa Junior Repertory Theatre and toured eastern Iowa doing shows for one summer.

A theatre scholarship sent her to college, where she worked in the costume shop alongside the weaving instructor for the college. She immediately knew she had to take Weaving I and II in the art department, but once accomplished, she wanted more. The instructor let her write her own curriculum for two more courses, which she competed her senior year.

“I am three hours shy of having a triple major,” Grace says. “Speech and Communication [theatre], Philosophy, and it would have been Art with a Studio Emphasis in Weaving.”

Weaving Around Work

For the next two decades, Grace moved around the country, following her then-husband’s career. She connected with craft guilds wherever she went, and she learned new skills like basketweaving.

While living in Minneapolis, she purchased her first loom – “the big one” – that folds up trim enough to fit through a standard doorway. She set up her own weaving company and took on gigs.

“I got paid for threading people’s looms because they didn’t want to do it. A little money on the side, way before Uber and Lyft,” she says.

It took some time to acquire all the toys she wanted.

“For the first three years of my spinning life, I did not spin on spinning wheels unless I borrowed from somebody for a demonstration,” Grace says. “I was spinning on suspended spindles, so I’m really good with that.”

When her marriage ended, Grace headed back to Iowa where she secured employment at the University. For a decade she worked as a secretary in the Science Education department, and then moved to the Law School, where she remained until 2017.

Between taking classes and working up to 60 hours a week, Grace managed to find time for her fiber work, although not enough to maintain her company. She joined the Iowa City Area Craft Guild, attending monthly meetings, open houses, and conferences. And she used her spare minutes to create.

“With spinning and weaving you can kind of tuck it in, especially spindle spinning,” she says. “If you’ve got five minutes, you can probably spin about five yards. Before cats came into the house, I kept a spindle up on the corner of the dining room table, because if I was ready before I needed to walk out of the house to catch the bus in the morning, I would stand there and spin. If I’ve got something in the oven and it’s got another 10 minutes, I would stand there and spin.”

Joining the Village

After leaving her university job, Grace was ready for a break.

“I told myself, I’m not going to do anything outside of the house for six months,” she says. “Two months later, I’m down at the Village.”

If you’ve met Grace, there’s a good chance it was at the Kalona Historical Village, where you’ll frequently find her these days, either behind the front desk, teaching kids to weave during Summer Camp, or demonstrating at the Loom House, of which she is curator.

A lot of her work happens behind the scenes; during quiet hours, she sorts materials and brings the spinning wheels, looms, and sewing machines back to working order. When the crowds come in, such as during Fall Festival, she delights in awakening an interest in people about where fabric comes from.

“Think about your own house, how much fabric is in it,” Grace says. “Most people don’t have a clue how it gets there, just like chocolate milk doesn’t come from brown cows. [I enjoy] talking with people and showing how things are done, because the spinning and weaving that I do is exactly as it is done in a mill. It’s just been speeded up; rather than spinning one thread at a time, they’re doing anywhere from 16 to 40 threads. Weaving is the same way, so fast it’s hard to see what’s happening.

“If you go to the Amanas, you see the mechanical, electric looms, and they’re just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. The people are walking around them wearing ear protection because it’s just too noisy. You couldn’t talk to them. Whereas I’m doing it slow, you can actually see what’s going on. I find that the men are always more interested in the mechanism, how the loom works, how the wheel works, that sort of thing.”

Grace’s work is not just show and tell; she wants others to discover the joys of fiber arts as well, so teaching classes is part of her repertoire.

“I’m trying to give people aha moments,” she says. “When I teach spindle spinning, my phrase is, ‘I am the gateway drug to spinning, because we are not going to talk about sheep breeds. We are not going to talk about crimp and how much twist to put in different fibers. You are just going to play with the spindle, and by the time you leave today, you’ll have about 14 different fibers.’”

By focusing on simply doing, with materials that are easy to work with, Grace makes the craft accessible and the payoff immediate. She sees that strategy succeed when kids return to Summer Camp year after year, get their own looms for birthdays or Christmas, and then join the camp as helpers when they get older.

Making a Statement

Grace has explored fiber thoroughly over her nearly seven decades. Although she has no desire to do so, she has the skills to raise and sheer a sheep; clean, spin and dye the fiber; weave yards of wool cloth; and cut and sew a finished jacket. She can start with an animal and end with an outfit.

In February 2026, she had her first ever solo exhibit at the Washington Public Library. Titled “Beauty/Useful,” the exhibit featured rugs, towels, scarves, shawls, and skeins hung simply on wood dowels. It exemplified her philosophy: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” [William Morris].

Unlike an artist who believes their work would be degraded by touch, Grace creates pieces for use.

“Who wouldn’t want to have a hand towel, a kitchen towel, that looks and feels like that?” she says of a work of 100% hemp, woven into latte-colored diamonds. “Over the years being used and washed and pressed, this will just end up softer and softer and softer.”

She occasionally enters contests, like the Iowa State Fair, but they’re never a priority.

And as far as purchasing her work goes, you may find a few items available at the Kalona Historical Village gift shop, but you’re more likely to see her wool hats on the heads of homeless folks in Iowa City.

Looking Forward

Grace is busy. A Fiber Arts February “Living Window” demonstration at the Washington Public Library has been extended to monthly demonstrations through August. On Saturday, April 25, she’ll lead weaving experiences at the Kalona Historical Village for anyone who signs up. And she’s got a plan for an adult winter camp at the Village, where participants might learn weaving, embroidery, and how to sew an apron.

At home, she estimates she has 15 projects started but not yet completed.

“Even though it seems that I have been creating things for years and years, there is still so much to learn and enjoy in all aspects of what I do,” Grace says.

That is not a fairy tale. That’s a hero’s journey.