Drop Spindle Cases Finished

Phew! I can’t believe six weeks have gone by since I first started working on this consignment. At long last, with plenty of interruptions, working in fits and starts, I’ve finished ten cases.

Much to my surprise, I learned that I enjoy working in production on the right product. There was enormous satisfaction in laying out yet another square of roving shingles, working the piece of felt until it was firm and then adding to the stack of finished pieces. Then trimming and sewing each of the bags consecutively gave me even deeper satisfaction as each one walked through my machine with little difficulty.

While I had hoped to make a set of fifteen bags to send to Maia at Tactile Fibers, the reality is that each piece took over two hours to make. I just don’t think there will be much market for a drop-spindle bag with that sort of handmade pricetag. Since I wanted a very durable felt, I chose blue faced leicester roving, a fairly slow felting fiber compared to merino. I worked each piece of flat felt hard on my glass washboard until they were really stiff. These two factors resulted in a piece of felt that took much longer to finish than I initially projected. Still, I’m really happy with the finished project and glad to send them on their way.