Small Business Feature: The Foldout Cat
During this giving season, we’d like to call attention to some of our small business partners. You’ve seen The Foldout Cat featured in the PLY gift guide. Now we’d like for you to meet them as more than just the product they sell.
Q Wirtz, the owner and Chief Feline of the Foldout Cat, started her spinning journey in 2012, when she was still practicing law full-time. At that time, she primarily focused on crochet for her fiber fix. She purchased a Schacht Ladybug but quickly exiled it to the closet when Toxic Perfectionism(™) got the better of her. Within a few years, she’d essentially given up on spinning. In 2014, she left the full-time practice of law and moved to Alabama to be with her partners.
Q explained, “I was both burned out and worn out, and I had absolutely no clear idea of what I wanted to do – or could do – next.”
To keep herself busy, Q began selling her crochet with one of her partners at a weekly maker fair at one of Huntsville’s reclaimed textile factories, Lowe Mill. She adds, “I found myself increasingly recharged and inspired by the constant exposure to assertive creativity, and in relatively short order I applied for and was granted a studio space with the collective… In early 2017 I took the terrifying step of giving my creative endeavors a business name – naming is a powerful act! – and the Foldout Cat came formally into being.”
In 2018, something extraordinary happened. “That November, I went to a spinning retreat hosted by friends, attending for the company but dutifully toting my Ladybug and a bit of theoretically easy-to-spin roving along for the look of the thing. I sat down next to someone who’d taught spinning for the Haus of Yarn in Nashville, stuck my fluff into the leader loop she tied on for me, sighed deeply and put my feet on the treadles … and something just clicked. I went through the roving I’d brought with me in the first hour after that silent revelation and spent the rest of the weekend spinning anything and everything the other attendees were willing to throw my way. They were delightfully generous, as fiber folk often are.”
The Foldout Cat had a new direction: spinning and enabling.
“Given the amount of time I spend teaching spinning/talking about spinning/actually spinning these days, I surprise myself sometimes when I remember that I only started spinning six years ago!” Q adds, “I love teaching anyone who wants to sit down and fiber with me – but my favorite is working with folks at the beginning of their experience with a given fiber-art form. I like giving people permission to play, and to experiment – and above all, as they’re learning a new skill (or acquiring a new tool for an existing creative toolbox), to give themselves the grace in that learning that they would give a beloved friend.”
The Foldout Cat’s Goals
Goal #1: to support myself, financially and psychoemotionally.
Goal #2: to spread love and respect for fiber arts of all kinds.
Goal #3: to empower everyone I meet through my business – students, customers, fiber-adjacent spice and partners – to believe that they have a creative, artistic aspect, that it deserves to be recognized and honored, and that doing so will enrich their lives.
Goal #4: to keep putting beauty into this world–especially now, especially in these tumultuous days – and to help others to do the same.
If you are looking for a last-minute fiber gift for the discerning spinner in your life, consider working with Q to create a custom CatBatt! If you have ever seen The Foldout Cat at one of the many festivals and fiber retreats where they vend, you’ve probably had the pleasure of seeing her one-of-a-kind batt buffet where customers get to choose their fibers from a plethora of options and Q will blend a custom batt right then and there.
She extends this service to her website. “Right now, online customers have two options there: they can send me an email and I’ll work with them remotely to build what they need or they can buy a gift certificate and use it in person at any of the 15+ shows to which I travel each year.” Design a batt for a loved one (or for yourself! You deserve some holiday fluff, too!) or give a gift certificate that allows your friends and family to design their own CatBatt.
Even if you don’t have the opportunity to grab a CatBatt now, you’ll have plenty of opportunities in the upcoming year. Q explains, “In 2024 I had the honor of being part of 18 events, from conferences like Convergence to huge festivals like Rhinebeck to intimate workshop series like the one I got to do at a good friend’s beautiful home studio in Georgia, and including the first-ever Alabama Fiber Festival in early November. My 2025 schedule’s on track to be even more packed – and I couldn’t be more grateful for all of the teaching and vending opportunities that presents.” Check out her website for a list of events where you can find the batt buffet in person this upcoming year!
