Blog - Josefin Waltin spinner

September 30, 2023September 30, 2023

A book deal

Dear readers, I have a book deal. In about two years I will release my very own book, Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning. It has been a long ride so far, a road that has been especially eventful these past nine months.

While there are lots of how-to spinning books on the market, Listen to the wool is more of a why-to book where I talk about why we take certain steps from fleece to yarn and what we can learn in each step from a unique fleece. I will encourage the reader to do the don’ts, challenge their preconceptions and embrace their mistakes, all the while I hold their hand. The book also has a wider perspective in why we spin (or craft) at all in a world where we don’t need to to feed and clothe our families. If you have read my blog I think you will recognize my relationship to the wool and my writing style.

Way back when

For many years I have had a book in my heart. It has been humming in the background since then, but lately it has moved on to buzzing. In 2019 I started to loosely plan it, mapping out topics to write about.

A first documented step towards a book, back in 2019.

I remember creating a mind map of topics I wanted to cover and asking a few trusted friends to read a chapter or two when the time came. I have come back to the mindmap every now and then, changed a few things and then procrastinated some more. Writing a book has been a theoretical priority, but has never made it into a practical one – there have always been other things like blog posts, online courses, articles with deadlines. All things that I love and thrive doing, but still shadowing my quite book dream.

Writing an email

During the pandemic I incorporated writing in my daily morning ritual. Just a couple of hand written pages in a journal, letting the words flow and settle down onto the page.

In the 2022 December solstice email I sent to my readers I wrote a couple of lines about writing and how it can help me understand the development of a thought process, dive deeper into the wool and share my reflections with you. I got a reply from Jane who recommended me to look up Beth Kempton, an author, course creator and Japanologist. I did, and found some lovely stuff.

The way of the fearless writer, by Beth Kempton has helped me a lot as I have unleashed my writing heart onto the page. The title of the notebook underneath is Write whatever wants to be written, as Beth Kempton inspires to.

I bought Beth Kempton’s book about writing, The Way of the Fearless Writer, and loved every page of it. I also joined her ten day winter writing sanctuary and thrived in daily writing into the new year.

A masterclass

I kept writing and loved the notion of writing what wants to be written, to allow the writing to write me. In March I enrolled in Beth Kempton’s four week online course, the Book Proposal Masterclass. There was lots of challenging assignments in the course and it took a lot of time and energy. But it also gave me so much more than I had ever imagined. A lesson in mapping out all my ideas on a wall (or underneath a staircase) gave me endless aha moments. It also made me realize that this could all be real one day.

One of the most mentally challenging assignments in the Book proposal masterclass was to brainstorm and bundle topics for the book.

One month after the month long course had ended I had a finished 40 page book proposal. What’s more, I had a structure and a shape for a book that until then had only been a blob. Through poking the blob from different angles throughout the course I managed to shape it into something real, something that could actually become a book.

Trusted friends

I went back to my trusted friends a couple of new ones. I asked them to read my 40 page book proposal and give me feedback from different angles. Their thoughts about the proposal helped me enormously and I sharpened the proposal according to their observations.

An agent

At first I thought I could just send my book proposal to a publisher, but during the book proposal masterclass I realized that I would need an agent. I am writing this book in English, since no Swedish publisher would ever publish a book for an audience as small as the Swedish spinning community. So my aim was the English speaking world, which of course widens the audience enormously, and especially the U.S. market where more than half my readers come from. I know absolutely nothing about the book publishing industry, and even less about U.S. and worldwide publishing, so I realized an agent could guide me through this vast jungle.

My presentation on Creative Authors’ website.

In July I found my agent, Isabel Atherton of Creative Authors. She is English but lives in Manhattan. When I looked her up she specified craft books as a particular interest. I sent her my book proposal and she happily agreed to take me on. She is my champion and explains everything to me about the business and contracts with great patience.

Isabel will do what she can to help me find a publisher that will provide my Swedish readers with a Swedish translation.

A book deal

Quick as an eagle, Isabel sent my proposal to various publishers, and just this week I signed with the U.S. publisher Stackpole, an imprint under Rowman and Littlefield. Stackpole has published craft books for many years, mainly in textile crafts and a couple of those about spinning. Their crafts editor (swoon!) Candi Derr was very excited about my book proposal just as it was, including having my husband Dan take all the pictures for the book.

To celebrate my book deal I bought a whole stack of books about writing and I am eagerly waiting for them to arrive. Tomorrow Dan and I will go to a friend’s pastures for our first photo shoot for the book.

Onwards!

This is huge for me. I am over the moon and terrified. There will be a lot of writing on my book now. The buzz from the book now has a wide spectrum between whale song and nails against the blackboard. One year from today my editor will have my manuscript. The book will be published around a year after that. Watch this space.

Thank you all for cheering me on, for asking questions and for making me a better spinner and writer. This book is for you.

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 or to book me for a lecture.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my 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.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
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.

September 23, 2023September 23, 2023

Wool Journey 2023

in 2014 I started a wool traveling club with four friends. Since then we have gone on an annual wool journey together. This year we went to one of the members’ house to weave.

Today I launch a new short online lecture about picking fleece! Welcome to my online school!

To be able to tell you about the 2023 wool journey I need to go back first. The 2022 wool journey went to Dala-Floda where we learned a local embroidery technique called påsöm. The teacher we hired for the course, Anna-Karin Jobs Arnberg, also arranges fulling workshops in the local 17th century fulling mill.

Weaving for fulling

A fulling mill is a mill that uses water to operate giant beams that stomp into larger troughs. Loosely woven wool cloth is placed in the troughs – 20 meters in each trough, and is fulled by the beams. You can read more about the fulling mill here and watch a video I recorded around the fulling mill back in 2018.

The 17th centrum fulling mill where we will be going in 2024. Pictures from 2018. Rightmost picture of the beams and the troughs by Dan Waltin.

At the 2022 course we decided to weave together on the 2023 wool journey with the aim of fulling our woven cloths on the 2024 wool journey at the fulling mill. Boel invited us all to her house to weave.

Boel’s house

Boel’s house is to die for. Smack in the middle of nowhere, still cozily tucked between green hills, forests and pastures. A flock of her parents’ Gotland sheep graze right around the yard and bind the perfect picture together with their quiet munching and sweet bleating.

It’s been a while since I met sheep and I was overjoyed at the opportunity to cuddle Boel’s sweet ladies. Being with sheep is such a serene place to be. Their warmth, their wool, the smell of lanolin, grass and sheep poo calmes me and makes my heart sing. Or bleat.

Gotland sheep

If you are outside of Sweden and have come in contact with Gotland sheep in your country, chances are their wool is softer than the wool of Swedish Gotland sheep. The Swedish breed standards encourage breeding for strong and lustrous Gotland wool to provide for beautiful skins. The Swedish Gotland wool is truly beautiful, but I rarely spin it since it is quite rough and at the same time very slippery.

Since I had the perfect opportunity, I bought a skin from Elton, the allegedly mean ram. He had done his job and fathered three seasons’ lambs. Rumour has it that he tasted good. And his skin is magnificent – large, silvery with a blueish tint and with a darker stripe down the mid back, an eel in the language of Gotland fleece.

A Gotland sheep skin is a true beauty. Here is Elton the mean ram with a killer eel down the back.

Looms and projects

For this year’s wool journey in preparation for next year’s we didn’t hire a teacher or attend a course. We just got together at Boel’s house to weave. Anna and I came with our rigid heddle looms on the train, Kristin brought her rigid heddle loom in her car and Boel had her floor loom in her house. Ellinor couldn’t make it this year.

Weaving in Boel’s conservatory overlooking the sheep pastures. The bosom friend I’m wearing is my handspun. It is available as a pattern in the spring 2022 issue of Spin-Off magazine. Screenshot from video by Kristin Jelsa.

I didn’t use a handspun yarn for this weave, I didn’t have one ready. I did however have lots of Shetland yarn I bought at a clearance after a lady who was the first in Sweden to import Shetland yarns. My plan is to turn the fulled cloth into a pillowcase. I have lots of yarn left and my idea is to use the three colours but in a different order and in different patterns for a collection of pillowcases.

Together in our hands

The members of the wool traveling club usually don’t meet between the wool journeys, so we have a lot to talk about when we do meet. About wool and crafting of course, but also about families, relationships and the ways of the world. Children growing up – there are eleven children between us, from 2 to 22 years old. Joys, frustrations, we talk about everything and anything.

Cats happen at Boel’s house. This one found a tolerable napping space. Photo by Boel Dittmer.

Crafting and talking is such a sweet space to be a part of. Being in our hands together gives an extra dimension to the room, something more, deeper, more sincere. I cherish these moments and am very grateful for them and for my sisters in craft.

We have different lives and live in different parts of the country, yet when we come together we take part of each other’s realities with warmth. When the journey is over we go back to our regular lives, and the following year we pick up where we left off.

Breathing

It was so quiet. Not a human-made sound, just the buzzing of bees, bleating of sheep, fluttering of leaves and bare feet in the grass. Breathing in the air in a place like that must be extra nourishing. I like to think that the air I breathe when I get up at five a.m. is unused, crisp like a new sprout. But this, here, is something extra.

Knitting outdoors in the September sun, listening to the silence and resting my eyes on trees and pastures with the needles dancing in my hands was such a bliss. Kristin and I sneaked out both mornings for a lovely dip in a nearby lake. That too a lovely space to be, in the water with a friend in the early hours.

Ready to full

As I got back home to Stockholm I finished the last stripes of my weave. The next weave to full will hopefully be a handspun one.

A few days after I got home I finished the last of my weave.

I have actually already finished one that has been waiting for a couple of years by now to be fulled. I can’t wait to get to the fulling mill!

Now go and enroll in that online lecture about picking fleece!

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 or to book me for a lecture.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my 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.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
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.

September 16, 2023September 14, 2023

Water retting

Since I started my experimental flax patch 2014 I have dew retted my harvest. This year I try water retting for the first time.

Every year I have been nervous about retting. About the retting process in itself because it is such a vital part of the quality and yield of the harvest, but also about something happening to the flax on the lawn.

Lawn issues

We do have a lawn right outside our house. The tricky part though, is that it is not our lawn. Our house is situated in sort of a park area through which people can stroll – there are practically no gardens and no fences. The lawn is also part of the whole row of four town houses.

Last year our neighbours were renovating their kitchen. I had laid my flax out to dew ret the day before they started ripping out the old furniture and dumping it uncomfortably close to my flax. It all worked out in the end, but it is a challenge to hog the lawn for three weeks for something people have no idea what it is. To them it is just straw in rows on the ground.

Enter: The kiddy pool

As I went out every day last year to check on the flax and the threat of the renovation bags, I read about my friend Christiane Seufferlein’s water retting. For water retting, a creek or a lake is recommended, so that the water is not still. Christiane did her water retting in a kiddy pool, though.

The kiddy pool water retting on day 1 and day 3.

We live very close to a lake, but I wouldn’t dare to leave my flax where passers-by can see it. We also have a creek, but there is only water running in it in the early spring from melting snow. So a kiddy pool was the perfect solution. I wouldn’t bother the neighbours, I wouldn’t have to worry so much about the flax being trampled on and the retting wouldn’t take three weeks.

Most of the kiddy pools on the market seem to come with either Disney motifs or inflatable palm trees. Or both. I did manage to find a plain rectangular pool, though.

Water retting

I harvested my flax on August 7th, but due to heavy and frequent rain it wasn’t dry until late August. I rippled it and started the retting on August 30th. I threw some soil in the bottom of the pool to get the retting a head start. To keep the flax bundles from surfacing I covered them with a couple of compost grids and some bricks. When I had it all organized I covered the arrangements with hose water of around 20 °C.

To trick the pool into believeing it was a real creek, I removed a bucket of pool water and added a bucket of hose water every day.

Testing

As the days went by, the water got increasingly gunky. Luckily, water retting is usually a lot faster than dew retting. Christiane had told me to check daily once the make-believe creek started to smell. On day 6 I took out a few strands, dried them and checked how the fibers came off the core. It had definitely started but was not finished.

End of process

I tested again on day 8, but it was on day 9 I decided to stop the process. The fibers came off the cellulose core with ease. On some strands the fibers had come off by themselves.

I also tested the strength of the fibers by tyeing a knot and pulling. If the fibers break close to the knot the fibers are strong. My fibers broke just by the knot. Happy as a clam I removed the flax bundles from the pool, sprinkled them with the hose and put it all to dry around the base of our oak tree.

Our big oak watches over the drying water retted flax.

The weather was warm and dry during this time and the bundles dried quite fast. The stems weighed 900 grams when fully dried.

Breaking and scutching

I have no idea if I will get the time to process the flax before it gets too cold. However, I like to at least break and scutch it before the winter so that it takes up less space indoors.

Breaking flax is quite laborious, but also something I look forward to doing. My 1821 flax break was made for a shorter person and my back wined a bit. After I felt the first blister in my hand I put on a biking glove. Neither pretty nor contemporary, but sometimes style needs to take a step down. I did take it of for the photo shoot, though.

Scutching my flax. The boon that isn’t on the ground is in my bra.

For the scutching I used my beautiful scutching knife, custom made for me last year by master carver Frej Lonnfors.

Test hackling

As I scutchted I started to suspect that the flax was underretted after all. Even if most of the boon came off, the fibers didn’t seem to separate. I decided to hackle a couple of stricks to investigate.

My soft and golden test hackled water retted flax. I can’t stop looking at it.

I ran the flax through rough and fine hackles and I was right. Despite the experience of ten harvests I obviously still haven’t learned how to ret properly. There were still lots of strands with the fibers glued together and there was quite a lot of waste, in both rough and fine hackling.

Baby soft

But the softness, oh the softness. I have never had a flax harvest as smooth as this! I read that water retting can make the fibers softer than dew retting and in this case it seems to be correct.

The colour is beautifully golden, in contrast to the more subtly silvery brown dew retted flax I am used to. Despite the high waste I expect to get more hackled flax than I have before. I had two flax patches this year, each around 1.5 square meters, and the flax quite high and even in length.

Next summer, sweet flax, you and I. Next summer.

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 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.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
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.

September 9, 2023September 9, 2023

Knit, rip, reknit

Have you ever knit a garment, not really used it, ripped it and reknit it into something else? I hadn’t until just recently. Today I knit, rip, reknit and rejoice. Spoiler alert: There is no spinning in this post.

A while ago, when I was looking for inspiration for linen knits, I stumbled upon a top that I really wanted to knit. My plan was to knit it with my handspun linen yarn.

Knit, 2014

However, I did have a top that I had knit back in 2014 in a commercial yarn that was the same as the yarn required in the pattern for this new top. The commercial yarn was a beautiful linen yarn by Quince & co. that I had ordered from the U.S. for the 2014 sweater.

Back in 2014 I knit the East end top by Alicia Plummer. It’s a lovely top, but I didn’t wear it very much. Photo by Dan Waltin.

I did love the top back when I knit it, but when I wore it, it was quite fiddly. The neck was a bit on the wide side and there was always a risk of body parts or bra straps showing. It never occurred to me back then to alter the fit. Therefore I didn’t use it very much.

Rip, 2023

When I found the new pattern requiring the same yarn, I decided it was time to rip the old top. Ripping linen yarn was a bit of a detangling challenge, but after some fiddling and occasional secret cutting, I managed to undo the whole top. To even out the phone cord curls I soaked the squiggly yarn overnight and hung it to dry, lightly weighted. It worked very well, reknitting with it felt no different than when I knit with it the first time.

Reknit, 2023

The new pattern is the Seguin top, by Quince. & co. It is a simple bottom-up knit in the round stockinette raglan sweater with rolled up cuffs and hem and a simple 1×1 ribbed neck band. The detail that makes the whole sweater interesting is a rectangular chest panel in sort of a tight oats pattern. The one over two cable repeat pulls the fabric together, making it look like decreased stitches underneath the panel, but it’s exactly the same amount of stitches.

The Seguin top is the loveliest everyday top.

I really like this detail, that shapes the whole yoke and gives some flare from the bust down. In combination with the simple stockinette and rolled hems it is the perfect everyday want-to-live-in kind of a top.

Shortage and abundance

The further I knit on the Seguin top, the more I realized that I might need to buy a couple of extra skeins. I found an online shop in France that carried the yarn in the same colour. I bought two to be safe, but I ended up using only a quarter of a skein to finish the sweater.

A colour shirt where I needed to join a quarter of a skein of new yarn is a sweet reminder of the thriftiness that is the core of this top.

I knew there was a risk that the colours of the used, ripped and washed 2014 yarn and the new 2023 yarn wouldn’t exactly match, but it didn’t bother me. It would just be a quirky conversation starter in the name of sustainability and making do and mend.

I was right, there is a colour shift from the old to the new yarn, and I quite like it. Ripping and reknitting has been a way of taking care of precious yarn and clothe your family through rough times. Knitting in the round works very well for this purpose – once a garment has been mended and patched until it can’t be mended anymore, it has been frogged and reknit into something else.

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 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.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
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.

September 2, 2023September 2, 2023

Meeting Irene

I spent the past weekend in Malmö in southern Sweden. The goal of the journey was meeting Irene Waggener, author, knitter and independent researcher.

”I will be in Copenhagen in August”, said Irene a few weeks ago. She is currently living in Yerevan, Armenia. ”Do you know any yarn shops there?” ”No, I don’t”, said I, “but I can take the train down from Stockholm and we can meet in Malmö!”. ”Yay”!! said both of us. And so we met.

On the train to Malmö to meet Irene Waggener, I read her book Keepers of the sheep.

Irene Waggener is the author of the beautiful book Keepers of the sheep – knitting in Morocco’s High Atlas and beyond. You can read my review of the book here. I have admired her work for a few years now. Two years ago I knit a pair of High Atlas pants, sirwal, that used to be traditional in the the Moroccan High Atlas and that she interprets in the book. They were typically knit by male shepherds from yarn spindle spun by their wives and worn for sheepherding and snow shoveling in the cold season. I use mine for going down to the lake for my daily bath when the air temperature goes below -6 °C.

Meeting pants

I met Irene and her husband Josh in the castle garden in Malmö. Both of us had brought our sirwal pants for them to meet too. Hers knit by spindle spun Moroccan yarn, mine knit with my spindle spun Swedish Gestrike wool yarn.

Our sirwal pants finally meet! Mine to the left, Irene’s to the right. Photo by Josh Waggener.

The pants look very similar, but there are also differences. I spun and knit mine tighter to fight off the cold of the Swedish winter. The white wool in her pants is somewhat reddish from the High Atlas soil. My black stripes are fading towards the hips. I knit them from the first and second fleece from the same sheep, Gunvor, and her black spots had faded with age. Both of our pants have traces of the pastures where the sheep have grazed. While the wools come from quite different lines of sheep, both the fleeces are strong and sturdy with both soft undercoat, long and strong outercoat and quirky kemp.

Spindles, spindles, spindles!

Irene also brought spindles – one floor supported High Atlas spindle, izdi, one floor supported Middle Atlas spindle, maghzal, and one suspended Armenian spindle, ilik. The Armenian spindle was a gift to me, a precious one. I brought hand carded batts from Swedish Gestrike sheep to try the spindles with. In my Instagram highlights you can see me spin with all three spindles.

High Atlas izdi

The High Atlas spindle is the one the yarn for the pants would have been spun with (and that the yarn in Irene’s pants was spun with). The spinner sits on the ground or floor. The spindle rests on the floor and sometimes in a bowl and is flicked with the fingers of the spinning hand. Irene had published Instagram videos with Moroccan spinners spinning on these spindles back when she lived in the area, and I had saved all of them. On the train to Malmö I studied them to be able to spin on the izdi with some amount of grace and dignity.

The High Atlas spindle is simple – a wooden shaft and, in this case, a whorl cut out from a car tyre. This type of spindle is traditionally spun with hand carded batts. The spinner inserts the twist into the whole length of the batt before making the draft. I love spinning this way, feeling the yarn do its magic as I move my hands in different directions, aligning the fibers softly in the twist with a draw that reaches between my outstretched arms. The High Atlas spindle typically spins fine high twist sock yarns and bulky low twist rug yarns.

Out of the three spindles I got to try, this was my favorite. The spindle was very simple in its execution and in the requirements to use it, yet it is operated with an advanced technique. In Irene’s videos there is also one showing a very special plying technique. The spinner pushes the spindle tip with a flat spinning hand outwards against the arm of the fiber hand. I didn’t have time to try it, though. The technique reminds me of the plying technique used for Andean pushka spindles.

Middle Atlas maghzal

The Middle Atlas spindle was hand carved from one piece of wood, with a belly instead of a whorl. It is supported on the ground, and rolled with a flat hand against the outer thigh of the spinner, who sits on the floor or ground. I believe this type of spindle was primarily used for bulkier yarns for rugs.

The Middle Atlas spindle is rolled against the thigh when the spinner is sitting on the floor or ground. Photo by Irene Waggener.

The wool for the Middle Atlas spindle would have been carded into rolags. I had only my batts with me, so the yarn I spun was a bit on the fine side, but it worked.

Armenian ilik

The Armenian top whorl spindle is also very simple in its construction. A long shaft and a whorl that looks a little like a door knob. This one is very sweet in its wonkiness and with its worm holes.

The Armenian spindle came home with me on the train. Photo by Irene Waggener.

The Armenian spindle is spun suspended and the twist inserted by rolling the shaft against the thigh of the standing or sitting spinner. This spindle is used for different types of yarn for both weaving and knitting.

Traditional spindles

I have one antique French in-hand spindle, one antique Turkish cross-arm spindle, two Andean suspended pushkas and one Peruvian suspended chaj-chaj spindle. These are traditional in different parts of the world, and still used in traditional textile communities. All the other spindles I have are modern, western made hobby spindles, some of them very luxurious. The traditional spindles were made with simple means and for production spinning, some of these very well worn, wonky and with little worm holes.

Don’t get me wrong – I love all my modern spindles. Holding the traditional spindles is something completely different, though, in the extra layer they add. Smooth in my hand, with the shaft echoing the skilled hands that had once flicked it. I felt so grateful to Irene for bringing them and to the spinners who had flicked them before me. My hands are there now too, together with theirs, in the magic of spinning.

Unfinished conversations

And we talked, the three of us. With ease and dedication we talked bout spinning, writing, knitting. World politics, pandemics and spiked bike tyres. About everything and anything. I loved every second of it.

Suddenly, the magic was broken and I had to go back to the train station. There was still so much more I wanted to talk about. If it hadn’t been for a working day coming up I would gladly have postponed my train ride back home. The three and a half hours we spent together were over way too soon. But we will continue the conversation the next time we meet.

On the train back home

On the train back home I did my best to process our time together, all the things we talked about, everything I learned from both Irene and Josh, all the laughter, and spending time in the beautiful castle garden. As I browsed through all the photos and videos they both were so kind to take with my camera, my heart tingled. It was a wonder that we did get to meet – Irene living in Armenia and me not flying don’t give the best odds for meeting. But we did, and I will cherish our day together. I’m so glad I came and that we managed to synch our calendars. Thank you for everything, Irene! I hope to see you again soon. My pants send their love to yours.

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 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.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
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.

August 26, 2023August 26, 2023

Blue ice

I have had lots of blue adventures this summer with my homegrown Japanese indigo and woad, and they are not over yet. Today’s post is about blue ice and leaf pounding.

To learn more about fresh indigo dyeing, pop in at the Dogwood dyer‘s!

I love that I can dye straight from fresh indigo leaves. I have tried the salt rub method a few times with both Japanese indigo and woad, and they have all given lovely results. Another fresh leaf method is the ice method, also called the blender method. You blend freshly harvested leaves with ice cold water, strain the blended leaves away and plop prewet textiles in the indigo juice for 5–20 minutes.

Silk cuffs

Usually when I play with indigo dyeing, I test with handspun silk yarn, a linen button and strips of linen and antique cotton. This time I had an addition to the dye bath – a white silk shirt I bought second hand online. It has wide and billowing cuffs that I wanted to dye with the ice method.

I used two plastic clamps to make sure the cuffs came straight and organized into the dye bath. I also clamped the neck strings together with the cuffs. To keep them off the dye I tied the rest of the sleeves and the body in a plastic bag. I prewet the shirt with the rest of the textiles overnight and prepared some water to cool in the fridge and an ice tray in the freezer.

Blue ice

In the morning I realized the capilarity had done its thing and wandered up into the rest of the garment. I knew that was a risk, but I didn’t mind. It could turn into a lovely effect.

I picked 100 grams of Japanese indigo Maruba leaves and blended with the ice cold water, strained off the leaves and carefully added the cuffs and the rest of the fabrics into the green fluid. Anything could happen now. But I was okay with that, it was an experiment and I would learn from it either way.

Baby teal

After only five minutes in the ice bath there was a clear difference and after 15 the material had transformed into the loveliest baby teal.

The blue ice bath after 5, 10 and 15 minutes.

I have a contradictory relationship to the colour teal. While I do love the colour, we don’t have the concept in Swedish so I am never sure whether or not I can call it teal. I don’t always know how to keep it apart from turquoise and other neighbouring colours. I decided though, that the colour of the cuffs is baby teal, and so it is.

The shirt is still wet and the colour a little more intense than when dried.

The dye did creep up an inch or so above the cuff seam, as I suspected. I really like it, though. It’s a perfectly imperfect transition between dyed and undyed, like a blue shadow.

Leaf pounding

I had planned the blue cuffs for quite a while, but it was only a day or two before I dyed that I realized that the perfect partner to the blue ice experiment would be pounded indigo leaves. I would place them as a decoration above the cuffs and around the neckline. So I picked some Japanese indigo leaves, placed a piece of cardboard between the fabric and the hammer to protect the silk and and pounded away.

The newly pounded Koyoko leaf prints are still green (left). All that is left is a thin shadow of the leaf (center) that still has some blue to offer (right).

I used leaves of different sizes from both the rounded Maruba and the arrow shaped Koyoko. Both for their different shapes and for their different blues. I turned the silk shirt inside out and placed the leaves between the layers to take advantage of both sides of the leaves. This means that every leaf print has a mirror image somewhere on the shirt. Placing the leaves between the slipaway silk was a bit fiddly, but with pins and focus I think I did a pretty good job getting the pattern symmetrical.

Yoke play

I have been designing the yoke in my mind the past few nights. In the early hours I knew just the way: I wanted the yoke to resemble a knit Fair Isle yoke.

A fair Isle style leaf pounding yoke for my silk shirt. In the center picture you can see the handspun silk and wool yarns I dyed in the ice bath together with the cuffs.

I started at the neckline with downward pointing Koyoko leaves. Below that upward pointing Maruba leaves and to give some structure to the base line I added the tips of Kyoko leaves. To create the tips I placed the whole leaf where I wanted it. I placed a piece of cardboard on top of the leaf, with the baseline covering the Maruba leaves to the left and right of it and pounded on the cardboard.

My leafy blue ice shirt is finished and I love wearing it!

There is still some green left in the leaves, but I assume it will fade away and reveal some more blue. This shirt will mature and change over time, just like we all do.

My leafy garden blue ice shirt is finished and I have lots of ideas of more leaf pounding with my homegrown flowers. There is so much to discover and play with. I am buying another second hand silk shirt right now!

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 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.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
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.

August 19, 2023August 18, 2023

Flax patch yarn

I have grown an experimental flax patch in my community garden allotment every year since 2014. This year I have spun my flax patch yarn for the first time.

I always felt I needed to deserve to spin my own flax, to be procifient enough to spin it. There was so little of it and I wanted to be sure I could make it justice. The first years I practiced with commercially prepared flax and last year I got to spin the exquisite 80–100 year old flax from the Austrian Berta’s flax project. And this year I allowed myself for the first time to spin my homegrown flax.

My homegrown flax 2014–2022 is finally spun!

Post prep prep

I always rehackle my stricks right before I spin them. I work every strick through rough hackle, fine hackle and flax brush for a fresh preparation. This gives me the best odds for a smooth yarn. And old preparation can be dense and tangled.

I rehackle and brush my flax right before I dress my distaff.

After I have rehackled and brushed I make a fan of the golden fibers and dress my distaff. My distaff holder is a bit on the short side, so I hold it in my hand when I spin and draft with the other hand.

2014–2017

The harvests from the first years were so small and I decided to spin the flax from these years together. 2014 and 2015 in one joined preparation, 2016 and 2017 in separate preparations but in the same stretch of yarn. 2016 was the year the neighbour’s cat decided my flax patch was the perfect napping spot. The harvest that year was minimal and very bent. 2017 cat free, but quite underretted.

The stricks were quite different. All quite short, probably due to the seed variety I had at the time. Retting and processing was of questionable quality in some of them, but all the flax was definitely spinnable.

2018 and 2019

2018 was a very dry and hot summer. Still, the flax that year was long (due to a new seed variety) and plentiful. I had extended my experiment with a second patch. A bit coarse, perhaps. The flax also had a yellowish tone. 35 grams of processed fiber in total.

I was really into flax that summer, and shot a video that for some reason got quite popular. In the video I dress my distaff with commercial flax and spin it on an in-hand spindle. In the background the lawn is visible, yellow from the drought. A month or so later I shot another video where I prepared my 2017 flax harvest at the Skansen open air museum. The 2018 flax was also prepared at Skansen, one year later.

I’m fanning my flax out in thin layers to prepare for dressing my distaff. The blue distaff band (right) is my spindle spun nettle yarn woven on a backstrap loom and dyed with my homegrown woad. The distaff pin was a gift from my grandfather to my great-grandmother Berta.

The following year was quite modest and underretted. I have no record of how the processing went, I only see a sad little strick of 11 grams.

2020

In 2020 the plants were quite uneven in both maturity and length – some were still green and a lot were totally wiltered when it was time to harvest. This was the last year with the spot I had used from the very start. The plants just didn’t thrive there any longer. Still, spinning the 14 grams from the 2020 yield was quite enjoyable and I managed to spin a fairly fine and even yarn.

2021

I had such high hopes for the 2021 flax. I had two patches in the allotment and the flax was tall. Unfortunately I managed to underret it. As I processes it I cried for all the waste, in both length and amount. I got 58 grams out of it. As I spun it, it was indeed uneven in length. The fattest of the three stricks was rehackled waste and second hand quality.

2022

The 2022 flax is my largest fiber yield yet – 123 grams. When I harvested this flax I did so in sections, beginning with the coarse edge plants, then moving on to the rest in order of length. This technique resulted in four different qualities.

I’m spinning my homegrown flax on my Kromski pre-prroduction Mazurka Henrietta, named after my great-grandmother and my aunt.

It was a pleasure to spin these and experience the difference. The two medium coarse stricks were a joy to spin as they were both long and thick. I could create very well organized fans and lovely distaff dressings.

The rehackled waste

I always rehackle my flax before I spin it, unless it has been newly hackled. A lot of fiber ends up in the hackles as waste. I do rehackle the hackle waste, though, and spin a second quality flax from it. This resulted in 62 grams from the hackling and rehackling of the 2014–2022 flax harvests. To my surprise it was a lovely spin. I thought it would be rough and tangled, but it worked quite smoothly. I did spin it indoors, though, since our neighbours had decided to eat fermented herring on their balcony. It did not smell like raspberry pie. At all.

Experiencing the experiments

As I have been spinning nine years of flax harvests during the past couple of weeks I have gone through all my flax husbandry successes and challenges. I have seen and experienced what soil, rain, sun, cats, retting and preparation does in the spinning and in the resulting yarn.

My flax patch yarn before and after scouring.

Through this I have learned that

different fiber lengths in one distaff dressing can result in an uneven yarn. It is worth the time and effort to harvest the flax in bundles of different lengths. A taller plant is also usually a coarser plant, so this separation also results in different coarseness in the bundles.
underretting influences all the upcoming steps. From more work needed for hackling and more waste in both hackling and spinning to more tangles in the fan, less spinning flow and a lower quality yarn.
rehackling with both rough and fine hackles and brushing does wonders for making the fan. The fibers are well separated and fan out smoothly and untangled.
creating the fan in thin layers will result in smoother spinning and higher quality yarn. Think one fiber thin layers.
cats need to be kept off the flax patch
Switching the patch from one year to the next is important.
retting is still a mystery.

I knew all this in theory. But experiencing it – literally – first hand is something completely different. My hands now know things they can’t unknow and I am richer for it. I can look at my 1136 meters and 223 grams of handspun and homegrown yarn and remember all I have learned. I may weave a towel or three with it.

And oh, I ended the week in the most perfect way by spending a whole day with my Austrian friend and flax princess Christiane Seufferlein of the Berta’s flax project. We had the best of times.

I met with the Austrian flax princess Christiane Seufferlein at the world heritage of Birka outside Stockholm.

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 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.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
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.

August 11, 2023August 12, 2023

Blue magic

Mmmm… the blue magic of indigo seems to be my theme for this summer. This week I have tried a fermentation method to extract indigo pigment from fresh Japanese indigo Koyoko leaves.

The cold water fermentation method is described in one of Liz Spencer’s (the Dogwood Dyer) online courses. I liked the slow and unhurried pace of the method and decided to give it a go. After all, I’m totally new at this and have no idea what I am doing really. The chemistry of indigo dyeing seems quite daunting, but I am equally intrigued by the variety of techniques and range of colours I can get from my sweet little plants.

Koyoko

When I started an in-person class in indigo growing and extraction here in Stockholm in April we got seeds for European woad, Chinese woad and Japanese indigo Maruba. We also got a pot with a few plants of Japanese indigo Koyoko. These take some time to grow and flower very late in the season, so to be able to harvest the Koyoko seeds, our instructor Katja provided us with baby plants instead of seeds.

All my Japanese indigo plants have grown very nicely and I giggle with joy and excitement every time I see them. Since I don’t have that many Koyoko plants I wanted to do something special with them. When I saw the cold fermentation method in Liz Spencer’s online class I knew I wanted to try it with my Koyoko plants.

Fermentation

For the extraction I picked most of my Koyoko plants for the extraction. I saved a few plants to flower so I can get the seeds for next season. I do love the brightness in the colour that I have managed to get so far with this variety.

Sunday morning was the day to start. I picked my plants and prepared a pot outside our front door, just next to the container where the rest of the plants grow. I checked the fermentation pot twice daily to keep an eye on the process. Liz lives and dyes in southern California, so the temperatures there are a lot higher than here in Stockholm, where it also has been unusually cold and rainy during the past week.

The fermentation pot after 72 hours (left) and 96 hours (right).

Alkalizing and oxidizing

On the fourth day I didn’t want to wait any longer – there is a risk of over fermenting. Liz lists different signs that the fermentation is at its peak and I decided it was time to stop the fermentation. I removed the indigo leaves and alkalized the mermaidy turquoise fluid. I felt very grown up when I checked the pH with a few pH strips. When I had the right pH I oxidized by pouring it between large buckets for a while.

*Look at that colour! My indigo plants say hello from their contai*ner. Oxidizing to the left, finished oxidizing to the right).

The colour was amazing. So much blue from my little plants. I left the blue magic to rest over night and allow the indigo pigment to sink.

More dye!

Meanwhile I did a salt rub with the leaves from the fermentation that were still fresh looking. There was still indigo left in them and I got some more shades in my collection of indigo dyed handspun silk collection. I tried to squeeze some indirubin out too, but failed – all I got was green that I suspect is chlorophyll only.

Salt rub dye from the fermentation leaves that were still fresh. Soy treated antique cotton, linen and linen buttons to the left, handspun silk to the right. The right silk yarn is overdyed after a previous experiment.

And I wait

This is where I wanted to write about watching the pigment sink to the bottom and then decanting the fluid to get access to the blue magic. But I can’t, not yet anyway. The morning after I had oxidized, the fluid looked exactly the same as the day before. Beautifully blue, but not a sign of any pigment sinking to the bottom of the pot.

I got nervous and described my predicament in a Facebook forum for indigo pigment extraction methods and got some reassuring replies with encouragement to give it a few days, perhaps even a week. So I wait, while at the same giddily planning upcoming blue adventures.

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 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.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
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.

August 5, 2023September 29, 2023

Chinese woad

After a local fox had raided our hügelkultur a few weeks ago my woad bed was a mess. I had only around eight plants of European woad left and two of the Chinese woad. This week I did a salt rub with the chinese woad.

Please don’t ask me for dyeing advice. I don’t know anything about it. For lots of courses in fresh indigo dyeing, have a look at the Dogwood Dyer website or instagram.

The woad plants that are left after the fox attack are thriving. Three compost grids under heavy rocks keep the fox away, although they don’t keep it off other beds. The Japanese Indigo is untouched so far, though.

Salt rub

Salt rubbing with fresh indigo bearing plants is a lovely method that is quick and requires only the fresh leaves and some salt. The salt helps extract moisture from the leaves.

A few weeks ago I did a couple of salt rubs with Japanese indigo, both Maruba and Koyoko. They resulted in clear greenish blues. I knew that woad has less indigo than Japanese indigo, so I counted on subtler colours in this Chinese woad salt rub.

The textiles

I picked the largest leaves from my precious Chinese woad plant in the morning and weighed them. There weren’t many leaves, but they are quite large and resulted in 50 grams. The recommendations I have got is to use at least twice the weight of leaves to textiles. My textiles weighed 10 grams, but I figure the midrib of a woad leaf takes up some of that weight.

I popped in two small skeins of handspun silk singles, two antique linen buttons, a linen patch and an antique cotton patch. I had soaked the cellulose fiber items in soy milk a few days earlier to disguise them as protein fibers and thereby take on more dye.

Rubbing away

With the Japanese indigo, both liquid and textiles turned blueish green after 5–10 minutes, but with the woad it never did. After 17 minutes of rubbing, the colour of both liquid, leaves and textiles was still grassy green. Significantly darker than in the beginning, but not a trace of blue.

From light to dark, but still grassy green after 17 minutes of rubbing.

I still had hope, though. After a quick cold water rinse, a wash in mild detergent and a vinegar rinse, the woady turquoise emerged and lifted my spirits. My first try with woad a couple of years ago resulted in tiny plants that got totally eaten by flea beetles. How a person can manage to kill an invasive plant like woad remains a mystery. Still, after the flea beetle incident, a first very failed indigo trial the same year and the fox attacks I am very grateful for every tiny dye experiment with my homegrown colour.

Warm and kind nuances with Chinese woad.

There is a difference between the cellulose and the protein fibers – there is more blue in the protein fibers. The protein fibers take up more dye than the cellulose fibers and there is still some chlorophyl in the cellulose fibers. This might mean that the colour in the cellulose textiles won’t be as colourfast as in the protein textiles. But the linen buttons seem to have caught more blue than both the linen and cotton patches.

More than blue

The dye power didn’t end with the salt rubbing, though. With a little help from heat and baking soda the indirubin may emerge, a mauve colour. I covered the remining leaves with some water, added a little baking soda and kept it warm, at around 50 °C. I added a skein of handspun silk singles, a linen patch and a linen button and left it in peace.

After an hour or so the liquid was reddish brown and the textiles olive brown. After a quick rinse, though, the silk transformed into the loveliest dusty mauve. The linen patch also turned mauve, but a little lighter. The button, well, while I can see some traces of mauve, it is mostly brownish grey. There is some of that brownish grey on the silk skein and the linen patch too, and it may be where the leaves have been in contact with the fibers.

Giddy, giddy

Every morning when I open my door to get the paper I see my indigo plant bin and smile (and sigh of relief that the roe deer haven’t eaten it). I am quite giddy about this, and so far it is thriving. The European woad in the Hügelkultur also looks very healthy and I am glad I got so much dye out of my single Chinese woad plant, that now only has a few small leaves left.

The newly salt rubbed textiles are drying on our garlic drying nails in the woodshed. The salt rubbed skeins are a bit tausled from the massage therapy.

My plan is to dye my little skeins of handspun silk singles in as many colours as possible, using different techniques and my different indigo bearing plants. I keep spinning the silk singles (on a supported spindle), anticipating a rainbow of indigo colours. Eventually they will all end up in the same project.

Left: All the textiles dyed with the Chinese woad. Right: The silk skeins from the Chinese woad dye next to the two skeins I dyed with the Japanese indigo Maruba a few weeks ago.

The patches of cotton and linen are just for comparison, but I hope I can find a project for my sweet buttons. I am sure their perfect match will appear sooner or later.

As I write this I look at my dyed textiles with joy while at the same time planning my next dyeing experiment. There are so many techniques to try and when I feel bold enough to try something a bit more challenging I will. I lean on the courses I have bought at the Dogwood dyer and the local course I am taking here in Stockholm. Just two weeks until the last class of the course.

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 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.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
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.

July 26, 2023July 29, 2023

To the sea

Today I give you an essay, something that wanted to be written after a walk down to the sea. There is no textile connection in this post.

Asana and ants

Tuesday morninyg yoga asana practice, 6 am. I stand in downward facing dog, hips in the air, feet and hands on the floor, creating a triangular shape with my body. Upside down I look back at the garden fence behind me. I see something moving on top of the lower horizontal board of the fence, something shiny. I realize they are ants, scurrying along the board edge between the two neighbouring lawns. From a slit in the fence the ants are lit by the morning sun from behind. It creates a sweet backlight halo on their bodies. I smile and continue my practice. Every time in downward dog I see them again, still scurrying along the board, still with that soft backlight.

Ants scurrying back and forth between neighbouring lawns.

A couple of ants find their way up my feet. I can feel them, but let them be. They are welcome to join my movement. Perhaps they enjoy the flight as I lift my feet into new asanas.

Rituals and adventures

I am on vacation with my family on the east coast of southern Sweden. In this new place I need to find new ways and spaces to go through my morning ritual. The space I choose to roll out my yoga mat is a narrow stretch of wooden floor decking just outside the front door to the Airbnb flat we are renting. As I go through my practice I find new spots to rest my gaze in balancing poses. A crack in a brick, a twig on a board.

After some reading, freewriting and breakfast I pack a bag and start the half-hour walk to the sea. I smile as I walk through the little town, passing tightly spaced houses bound together with patches of roses, lavender and hollyhock. Not many people are out, just a few dog owners and bikers, silently rolling past me. We nod and say good morning, as morning people tend to do.

Eventhough I am in a new place, this is still my morning ritual. I still do the same things as I do at home. I practice my yoga asana, read a few pages squatting on the floor, write whatever wants to be written and go down to the waterfront. Only in a new town with new surroundings and different waters. At the same time I explore a place through those same rituals and feel a little adventurous in my search of how to marry my habitual pattern to spaces new to me.

Straight ahead

I come to a footbridge that stretches across a stream, binding the town and a summer cottage area together. Near the southern end bramble branches peek through the fence spaces. I wonder if the town citizens will pick the berries once they ripen in a couple of weeks.

Brambles nestling their way between the fence posts.

I pass a parking space with a single bread truck, hatch closed. A right and a left turn, then south. A straight and narrow paved road is my guide, edged by cottages of all shapes and sizes, wedged in between tall pines. As I squint at the pines I realize they could be strands of grass in a lawn and I one of those ants on the edge of the fence board.

The road feels soft beneath my shoes. Mindfully I place one foot in front of the other. The movement is slow but solidly forward, I can barely feel the moving of my center of gravity. After a while I hear it – first a swish and later a roar, from the sea. The salty smell becomes increasingly noticeable. In the corner of another parking space, white sand has run down onto the pavement. With two steps forwards and one step back I climb the dune, bare feet sinking deep into their own tracks.

The door to the sea

In one single moment the dusky pine forest cracks open and reveals the sea, vast and open. As I cross the ridge, the bright, yet subtle colours hit me to a degree that I nearly need to take a step back. Yet, I stand and take in the majestic sight, inhaling it with all my senses.

The endless sea spreads out like a blanket in front of me, rhythmically rolling its flaired edge to the beach. Somewhere in the other end of that blanket is Lithuania. The sand is soft and warm underneath my feet, but not too hot yet. My feet sink down and the sand yields to my step.

A dip

I get changed and walk slowly out into the sea. The waves meet me, greet me and present a new medium for my body to explore. The water is cold, perhaps 13 °C. The further I walk, the more powerful are the waves. At waist depth I stop, place my feet wide to prepare to meet and receive the striking forces. I stand and breathe, let the sea breathe me through its rolling rhythm. I smell the brackish water and allow it and my senses to have their way with me. All I can do is surrender to the moment.

The power of the sea. To the right, the gate back to the pine forest.

After a few minutes I walk back slowly toward the beach. As I reach it I turn around, thank the sea for having me, get dressed and exit through the magic door at the ridge of the dune.

Lucky ducks who don’t need to remove the sand from their feet.

I spend several minutes trying, in vain of course, to remove the sand from feet and shoes. Is that even possible?

Sourdough surprise

As I walk back along the paved road the view is new. Not only because of the reversed direction of my path, but through the new experiences and sensations that have enriched it. I walk lighter, brighter, humbler and with new tingles in mind and body.

8:15. The bread hatch is open and three people have formed a line outside the truck. I buy four sourdough rolls to bring home to my family. As I walk back to the flat I feel the warmth of the rolls through the paper bag.

*The bread truck is open (left)! We have taken a foot photo on every vacation since our very first, back in 199*2 (right).

On the following morning walks to the sea I am accompanied by my family. When we get back home to Stockholm I smile at the sand still in my shoes.

Happy spinning!

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