Sometimes I loose myself in the crafting moment. The senses take over like a force of nature and guide me through my process, sweetly, mindfully. My fingers know what to do and still they experience every movement and every sensation as if for the first time. I had one of those sweet moment the other day while I was warping. So today I give you a warping meditation.
I have just come back from a morning swim in the pale morning sun. It is early November and the trees still have some yellow and red leaves on their branches. Heaps of leaves in all shades of red, yellow and brown are scattered over the ground, inviting, enticing. The musky autumn smells swirl around me, whispering sweet autumnal hymns in my ears.
A warp in waiting
Meanwhile, eight skeins of handspun Gute yarn are waiting in the book shelf. My plan is to weave a loose sett and full the finished fabric into a sturdy wadmal cloth. I decide today is Warping Day. Usually I warp longer projects at the local weaver’s guild, but due to the pandemic I don’t want to put the elderly ladies in the guild at risk. The sun is warm on our terrace and that will be my warping zone.
The whispers of a fleece
As I grab one of the skeins I immediately feel the soft and safe message from the lanolin in the yarn. The smell, the touch and the soft colours take me back to the staples I processed just a few weeks ago. Strong, light and rustic. It also reminds me of the Gute sheep that gave me the wool. I received the gift of wool and it is now my mission to make the strengths of the fleece justice as a textile.
I look at the skein in my hand and see the different fiber types – the long and strong outercoat, some fibers finer and some coarser. Soft, soft undercoat in sparkling silvery white. Rough and short kemp fibers that point in a direction of their own choice. I know that a majority of the kemp fibers will fall out of the yarn as I weave, leaving air pockets, making the cloth warmer and softer.
Warping in the November sun
I bring my tools out to the terrace, secure the warping peg and mount the umbrella swift on the fence. The skein on the swift sparkles in all its glorious shades of grey, turning round and round on my command as I feed the yarn to the hungry warp.
A warping meditation
The yarn goes through my hands over and over again, just as it has many times before during sorting, washing, carding and spinning. The strand in my hand leaves a touch of its wooly magic, like a gentle puff of lanolin and sheephood on my fingers. Inch by inch my fingers attentively follow the thread, from the loom, through the slot of the heddle, around the warping peg and back again.
I own this yarn. My hands made it and through the many hours of processing and spinning they know every fiber of it. Yet, it keeps teaching me new things every time I touch it and it will probably keep teaching me through its career as a fabric, on levels I don’t yet know will exist.
Thread by thread I build the frame of the warp, the very skeleton which I will dress, one shuttling after another, with woolen layers. My hands giggle as they touch the surface of this scaffold in the making. As I walk mindfully back and forth with the warp yarn in the shy November sun I remember that the Gute sheep I work with is an outdoor sheep, it stays outdoors all year round. Even the name is an acronym for the very outdooriness of the breed – Gotland outdoor sheep (Gotländskt Utegångsfår). I smile and hope the yarn enjoys being in some way in its natural habitat.
When I have reached the last slot of the heddle I smile at my newborn warp. I wonder what will become of it, how we will work together and what it will teach me next. As I go back inside I thank the sun with its pale rays for their warmth and comfort.
A sun salutation
This time of year I follow the sun – from the gentle sparkles accompanying me on my early morning swim, through the warm morning and mid-day sun by the spinning wheel in the living room and to the afternoon gold-pink-red transformation in my home office.
After a soup lunch I see the loom standing against the book shelf as I leave the kitchen. I can’t help myself and decide to start weaving, just a little bit. The rhythm of dressing the heddle is mesmerizing – Slot, hole, slot, hole all the way to the end. I tie the warp bundles onto the warp beam and feel for irregular tension with my fingers, eyes closed. I lift the heddle and the first shed is born. As new sheds are created between the shuttled weft threads I feel them again – the soft rays, on the side of my face. The sun has rounded the house and reached the office where I weave.
I finish today’s session and put the loom back agains the book shelf. Looking down on the floor I see little heaps of kemp fibers that have decided to leave the yarn and seek their own adventure, just as I anticipated. A new chapter of the weaving journey has begun and I cherish every second of it.
Happy spinning!
You can find me in several social media:
- This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
- My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
- I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
- I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden.
- On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
- Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
- In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
- I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
I really like the idea of leaving kemp in so it can fall out during weaving to lighten the wool up with air spaces. Was this yarn spun wooled or worsted?
The yarn is spun woolen (English long draw) with quite a lot of twist.