WHERE THERE’S A WOOL THERE’S A WAY For Glenburn artist-teacher, felting is like ‘finger painting for adults’

Taking a felting class with Sandy Spiller is like being in kindergarten again. Only more sophisticated. Instead of crayons and paper, you “scribble” with colorful tufts of wool, scraps of lustrous yarn and swaths of vibrant silk. But you have just as much fun – and you even get to make a mess.

On a recent morning at Essentially Felt, her sunny Glenburn studio, Spiller appraised her supplies with the eye of a painter. She measured out a strip of royal blue silk and spread it out on a layer of bubble wrap, whipped out her color wheel for guidance and set me loose on bags of merino roving – soft, carded wool that hasn’t been spun.

We worked together, carding wool in shades of green, turquoise, orange and plum – either by hand or using what looks like a giant hairbrush – and laying out puffs of color on the silk. Next, we layered on swirls of acid-green yarn and mohair-blend “squares.” Though it looked like a rainbow-fleeced sheep had exploded on the table, I was well on my way to designing a scarf.

“In felting, more is more,” Spiller said with a smile. “I like to think of it as finger painting for adults.”

For the uninitiated, felting turns loose wool fibers into a solid piece of fabric by using water, a little bit of heat and friction. It’s an ages-old tradition that originated in Asia as a way to make protective garments and shelter – even today, Mongolian yurts are covered with thick layers of felt.

On this day, Spiller demonstrated the Nuno technique, which fuses together silk and wool to create a feather-light, draping material. For a recent class, Spiller teamed up with Michelle Henning, a jewelry artisan, and the duo taught students how to create woolen beads and flowers to accent necklaces, earrings and brooches.

Spiller’s own work, which she sells through her studio and at fine craft shows throughout New England, has a distinctive aesthetic. She “paints” with wool, silk, scraps of fabric and lengths of yarn. And while some of her creations can be displayed on the wall, others, such as her elegant, diaphanous wraps or her signature slippers, are meant to be worn.

“People tell me they can recognize my work,” Spiller said. “I think the things that distinguish it are color and the collage pieces I do. … I want to be recognized more for the artistic component.”

A Kansas native, Spiller grew up quilting, knitting and doing traditional needlework – she even knows how to tat, which is rare for a woman in her 50s. She worked for years as a nurse, and she sewed her own nursing uniforms. Later she became an interior designer. About 12 years ago, she took her first felting class by accident.

“I thought it was going to be millinery techniques, and it turns out it was felting,” Spiller said. “I’m from the Midwest, and we didn’t have much felt.”

After that first class, she was hooked – felting appealed to her design sense and her nurturing nature – so she went on to study other techniques. She enjoyed most of her classes, but one stands out in her mind as particularly bad – not because of the instructor, per se, but because the materials were so ugly.

“I made what I like to call my ‘asbestos mittens,’ my ‘varicose veins hat’ and my ‘Army camouflage bag,'” she said. “The materials were awful. There was no color selection, and I was miserable because I’m all about color. … When I started teaching I said, unh-uh. Everybody gets the full range.”

Which brings us back to the scarf-in-progress, which pretty much had the full range all crammed into one 10-by-1-foot strip. We even put fringe on the sides. Like Spiller said, more is more.

I didn’t realize she meant more work, however. Traditionally, when you take a class in a needlecraft, you learn a lot and end up with something pretty at the end of the day. When you take one of Spiller’s classes, you learn a lot, get a full-body workout and end up with something pretty at the end of the day.

Once I had all the wool and yarn where I wanted it, Spiller brought out a large, filmy white curtain and billowed it out over the whole shebang. Next, she squirted a small amount of soapy water over the fabric and asked me to press down so it would soak through the wool. Then she rolled it around a PVC pipe and turned to me with a mischievous grin.

“We’re going to start what I call ‘the rolling hundreds,'” she said, and with that, she started rolling the bundle like a baker wielding a giant rolling pin. She rolled fast and she rolled hard, and when she finished the first hundred repetitions, she unrolled the scarf, checked to see that everything was OK, rerolled it and handed the job over to me. Then she flipped on her stereo and the sound of Aretha Franklin filled the room.

We rolled until our arms felt like they were going to fall off – did I mention Spiller is in great shape? – and by then, our work was almost finished. We unrolled the scarf one final time, squirted it with warm water and started tossing it like bread dough to shrink the fabric. If you’re tense, felting is a great stress-reliever.

“I think felting is so therapeutic,” she said.

Mary Fitzpatrick would agree. She took her first class with Spiller after a very difficult stretch in her life. Several family members had died, and she hadn’t really ventured out of her house. When she signed up for the scarf-making workshop, Spiller urged Fitzpatrick to bring fabrics from home that belonged to someone close to her – she could incorporate them into the scarf.

“It was very meaningful to me,” Fitzpatrick said. “When I walked into the studio I was just overcome with all the colors. It was a journey. It opened up a creative door that had been shut for quite a long time. I really had quite a spiritual experience that day.”

When Spiller laid out my scarf on the table, I, too, had a bit of an epiphany. A creative realization, if you will – to trust my instincts, even if they were a little wacky. It didn’t look like a sheep gone bad. It was a thing of beauty. With funky, dreadlocklike fringe on the sides. It was fun. And playful. With lots of colors. Just like kindergarten.

For information on upcoming classes at Essentially Felt, call Sandy Spiller at 942-0365.