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What Would You Have Done?

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I have a confession to make…. Actually 2 confessions, if I am totally honest….

The spinners among you will know all too well that spinning wheels are a lot like sheep, if you don’t get the tension just right they can be a little skittish, they need feeding (with fibre) and of course they are always happiest when gathered in a flock. 🙂 I suspect you already see where this post is headed….

My first, beloved wheel, is an Ashford Traditional fitted with a jumbo flyer. She is a lovely wheel. I have spent many happy hours learning to spin and making some (prize-winning) art yarns on her but I have been hankering for a e-spinner almost since the first time I plied 2 singles together.

Mr TB likes a good engineering challenge, so he offered to design and 3-D print an e-spinner for me. Three years later we are surrounded by various iterations of e-spinner parts but nothing that could function as an e-spinner.

Sexy eh?

In January a friend posted on FB that she had signed up to the Electric Eel Wheel Kickstarter for his newest e-spinner, the Fold. As the name suggests it is a decent size but folds down to make it much more convenient to travel with. I had to have one! So I signed up but soon realised I would have to wait until March 2026 for it to be shipped! Oh well, I’ve already waited 3 years for my first e-spinner, what’s another year? So I resigned myself to having an only child (wheel) for another year.

Phew! that’s confession #1 revealed, that wasn’t so hard but Mr TB was rather disappointed that I had given up on him producing an e-spinner.

Earlier this month was the annual Pukekohe Spin-in, I was trading at the event, and overheard a conversation about an e-spinner on the pre-loved equipment stand. The other traders were still setting up their stands and the doors weren’t due to open for another 30 min. I was just going to have a look, there’s no harm in looking right?

Ten minutes later I was happily putting the e-spinner through her paces in the hall kitchen, I was in love! I knew I was breaking the first rule of selling at craft fairs – “don’t spend more than you’ve earned”, but I didn’t care, she was coming home with me! 🙂

Next, to “sneak” my new purchase into the house….

Mr TB just rolled his eyes at me.

The first few evenings I had her sitting on the coffee table but it was a little too far away for comfort, so I started looking for a height adjustable trolley and came across various tables that are probably meant for people who are bed-bound. I ordered one and braced myself for the inevitable barrage of jokes from Mr TB, but as yet he’s not made any comment. I suspect he doesn’t realise what the table is…

It’s perfect for spinning with my feet up on the Lazy-boy in front if the TV and the castors make it a doddle to wheel out of the way when not in use.

I’ve only had the spinner for a few days but this was the first skein she has produced for me:

I am delighted with my purchase, she wasn’t cheap but e-spinners seem to keep their value on the second-hand market here. I will probably sell my Ashford e-spinner once the EEW Fold arrives. Mr TB thinks I’m crazy buying 2 e-spinners just a few weeks apart, do you think I made the right call?

Taking inspiration

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Where do the ideas for your felt projects come from? I find inspiration in a whole range of sources, sometimes it’s photos of flora or fauna I’ve taken on holiday or just stumbled across on the web, sometimes it is scrappy little samples from playing in the studio that spark an idea for a bigger project and sometimes it’s other artists’ work.

Potters are a favourite source for this last group, as a part-time potter myself I am probably exposed to other potters work more than most and I love the technical challenge of thinking how my favourite shapes and forms made in clay can be translated into a completely different medium like wet felt.

My interest was piqued by a post in the Sculptural Wet Felting group on Facebook (if you aren’t a member I recommend joining, there are some very clever people doing amazing things with felt in there!). The post introduced Ursula Morley Price’s incredible ceramic artworks, her name is definitely worth Googling and her incredible work appears to be for sale in galleries all over the world.

The post on FB set us a challenge, to interpret Ursula’s work in wet felt…. Challenge accepted!

Labour weekend was the second of our annual Auckland Fun Felter’s retreats, my (probably overly-ambitious) plans to make a 2 storey cat cave and a felted origami footstool were pushed aside so I could play with felted “fins” instead.

I confess, I had made similar pieces in felt before, these I called my “flappy vessels”. Most have been sold or gifted but I still have these two, my “helter-skelter vessel”:

and a hanging light:

But seeing Ursula’s work inspired me to go all-out adding fins to my “vessels”.

The first attempt was a hat, using my current favourite “Dragon’s Breath” merino and silk blend:

It reminds me of an erupting volcano, it doesn’t have a name yet but my thoughts are headed in that direction. Any ideas for a name?

I was pleased with how the hat turned out so set myself an extra challenge of making a vessel that could stand aloft on its fins, I think this one will be called “levitate”:

I am tempted to trim some more of the base fins so it is left standing on just a handful and make it appear more like it is floating.

Are you feeling inspired? I’d love to see what you create!