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Nettle processing

Last summer I picked some stinging nettles (urticaria dioica) and dew retted them together with my flax harvest. Just as with my tiny flax patch I wanted to experiment with nettles and see what I could find. Today I share my nettle processing and thoughts.

Everything I have done in this experiment has been just that – an experiment and something to relate to in later nettle experiments. This is my only experience with nettles and I can’t tell the cause of different outcomes, only speculate. I can just observe and learn. And there is a beauty in that.

Dew retted

When the flowers had almost finished flowering I picked my first nettles. This was in the end of July. I picked the tallest ones without side shoots and stripped the leaves off. I dried them in tent-line shapes, just like the flax and dew retted later in the autumn. The nettles required a little longer retting period than the approximately 20 days I aim for with flax.

Dew retted (left) and root retted nettle stems. The dew retted stems have the typical spotted look just like dew retted flax.

With no previous experience with nettle retting I wasn’t sure what level of retting was enough. In hindsight I realize that I should have retted a bit longer for a better result.

Root retted

I also read that I could use root retted nettles. That is, nettles that had retted on their growth place over the winter. Harvest day was a sunny day in February, not long before the new shoots would appear.

Root retted nettles, harvested in February.

I felt so good about walking out to one of the spots I had looked out during the summer and harvest what no one would look twice at, just a bundle of last year’s decay.

I am really fascinated by the root retting option. Nature is brilliant in so many ways! I just picked what nature had left to die in its natural cycle and I rescued 60 or so of the still standing stems. I did pick some that had fallen too but they had overretted and were of no use for fiber.

Breaking

A couple of weeks ago I decided to break my nettle stems. I had read about baking the nettle first to make it easier for the fibers to loosen from the core. Heat was the issue here, and I decided to place my nettle stems in my mini greenhouse for a couple of hours on a sunny day.

Dew retted (left) and root retted (right) nettle fibers in the flax break.

As I took the two bundles outside the difference between them struck me. The dew retted looked just like that – dew retted, with the dark spots that are typical for dew retted flax. The root retted nettles on the other hand had an even reddish brown colour. As I peeled off some fibers the dew retted were shiny and strong and the root retted matte and somewhat weaker, at least in the samples I tried.

Dew retted (left) and root retted (right) nettle fibers after a turn in the flax break.

I knew nettle processing would be a lot more labour intensive than the already labour intensive flax processing and I was not wrong. Aside from nettles being fewer and harder to hunt the stems are longer and harder to break. Still there was a moment of magic as I started breaking my dry stems: I could actually see fibers!

Scutching

There was a lot of boon (the woody parts) entangled in the fibers and I wondered if I would have to pick them out one by one.

As I had finished breaking both bundles I scutched them. A lot of boon fell out but there was very much left in the fibers. Then I remembered something I saw in a video with Allan Brown – he rubbed the fibers between his hands. This would create heat and make the boon be easier to remove.

Root retted (top) and dew retted (bottom) after scutching and rubbing.

And that is just what happened – a lot of the boon fell out of the preparation as I rubbed the stricks between my palms. The fibers also got a bit softer.

Hackling

I used my rough and fine hackles in the hackling stage of the process. This part was also quite labour intensive – there was more boon and in bigger parts than in flax. I also got more convinced about my theory about the underretted dew retted nettle stems – there was more waste in the dew retted strick than in the root retted strick.

Rough hackled (left) and fine hackled (right) nettle fibers.

After the fine hackling the fibers were aligned and detangled. I still wasn’t completely happy with them, though. A lot of the fibers were still bundled together, making them coarse. As I hackled the fibers I saw sweet tufts of super soft but very short fibers. I wanted to incorporate these in the yarn. So I saved what soft tufts I could find and kept thinking how to get more of that softness.

Rubbing and scraping

Since the rubbing had worked after the scutching I kept rubbing the now hackled stricks to soften them. I took a small bundle of fiber and rubbed it for about twenty minutes and went on to the next bundle.

Once you get the bark off the fiber bundles the individual fibers reveal themselves (left) Fine hackled and rubbed nettle fibers (right).

The warmth and the agitation did help a lot with the softness, but there was still bark left. I re-watched a clip with Allan Brown again. He used a blunt knife to scrape off the bark, which I tried too. It worked and some more of it came off.

Broken, scutched, rough hackled, fine hackled, rubbed and scraped nettle fibers, root retted (left and middle) and dew retted (right).

As you can see in all the pictures there is at least double the amount of root retted nettle fiber. There may have been a little more to start with, but not much. I withhold my theory of the underretted dew retted nettles. The boon and bark feel more strongly attached to the fibers than those of the root retted fibers. More of the dew retted fibers thus break and I need to manually remove more cellulose bits.

Carding

I used a pair of fine (108 tip) cards to card the nettle fibers. This separated a lot of the fibers that had been glued together by the bark. Most of the fibers in my carded rolags were now shorter but soft, fine and ready to spin!

I loaded the card with the hackled nettle fibers and carded quite brutally. After carding with 108 tip cards the fibers are a lot more separated and has less unwanted cellulose bits.

A note on spinning

I have spun and plied the dew retted fibers and begun spinning the root retted. The fibers are very fine and short so I need to keep my eye on the drafting and quite a lot of twist. I’m spinning a very fine yarn on a 10 gram cross-armed spindle.

Dew retted (left) and root retted (right) spun on a 10 gram cross-arm spindle from broken, scutched, rough hackled, fine hackled, rubbed and hand-carded rolags.

The fibers feel quite dry but still work well to spin. I need to focus, though. I still feel some coarseness but seeing the transformation in the fibers through rubbing and agitating the fibers I am convinced that I can soften them even more with more rubbing after plying.

After having read up on finishing nettle yarn I have decided to treat it the same way I do my flax yarns – hot water, soda ash and soap. And then perhaps some more rubbing.

My plan is to weave a narrow band on a backstrap loom.

An accessible fiber

While nettle processing is very time consuming and labour intensive it is possible to spin it. And the more time and dedication you invest in it the bigger the chance to get a soft yarn and textile. And it works. Even with less work I will get a yarn that is usable for something.

2-plied yarn from dew retted nettles.

The sweet thing about nettles is that it is accessible. With no sheep and no ground to grow flax in you can always go out and look for nettles. And if you don’t want to take the nurseries from the small tortoiseshell or other butterflies or fertilization material from your garden you can even pick them in the winter. So go out and gather your nettles! Either when they are ready to pick fresh for dew retting (check resources below for further reading about what to look for) or when they have root retted in late winter.

Resources:

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 missanything!
  • 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.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new 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.
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Rya bench pad

Today is my husband’s 50th birthday. I have planned his birthday present as part two of a stwo-stage process of for over 2 years. This is the story of a rya bench pad.

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a book that fascinated me, Hammare och spik (Hammer and nail, also available in English) by Erik Eje Almqvist. The book builds on Enzo Mari’s idea of functional furniture with right angles that anyone can build. The book contains descriptions of stools, chairs, benches, tables, shelves and more that are based on standard Swedish timber measurements. You can read more about the bench here.

A rya bench pad is finally finished!

A garden bench

I really wanted to build something from the book, and for Dan’s 49th birthday last midsummer I managed to build him a lovely park bench (he calls her Judi by the way, Judi Bench, a dame).

We have spent many lovely meals sitting on the bench. During the summer we also painted a couple of coats of roslagsmahogny (a mix of pine tar, linseed oil and turpentine) to protect it.

A garden bench made with love for Dan’s 49th birthday.

As I secretly planned the making of the bench I jumped one step ahead and came up with an even more secret idea: I was going to weave a bench pad for his 50th birthday. And I wanted to weave it with rya knots.

Rya yarn for rya knots in a rya bench pad

I had the perfect candidate for the yarn. At the Swedish fleece championships 2020 I bought one of the silver medalist, a strong and shiny white rya fleece. My plan for it was just that, to spin a yarn for rya knots for some project. And now I knew what the project would be. I have woven rya chair pads before, but never with a yarn that I had spun for that particular purpose, only with stashed yarn.

I’m spinning my rya knot yarn from a silver medal winning rya fleece with exceptional shine and strength.

I tried to read up on rya knot yarn but I didn’t find very much. There are lots of rya textiles in the digital museums and books about the history of rya yarn, but not very much of the spinning technique or the preparation. Many of the antique ryas seem to have a low spinning twist and a high plying twist in combination with a light fulling, so I incorporated that into my plan. And since I knew that a rya textile weighs a lot I decided to card the wool and spin it woolen. A combed and worsted spun wool is denser and would therefore require more wool and weigh more. Since rya wool usually has an exceptional shine I knew I would still get the shine even if I spun the yarn woolen.

Rya rya yarn. Carded and spun woolen on a spinning wheel. Low spinning twist and high plying twist and lightly fulled. White rya wool as main colour and a grey rya fleece for contrast colour. I divided the greys into two shades to play with.

You can read more about the intriguing history of rya rugs and their influence on rya sheep and Swedish landrace breeding in my blog post about rya wool.

Vävstuga

I don’t have a floor loom, nor do I have the skills to use one. Instead I weave on a rigid heddle loom or a backstrap loom. I do this at home, but for this project to remain a secret I needed to weave somewhere else. Luckily I am a member of the local vävstuga. A vävstuga is a weaving room with access to looms and weaving equipment. In my vävstuga, just a few hundred meters from our house, there are six floor looms, lots of equipment and skilled weavers who can lead me in the right direction when I am lost.

Every now and then I brought my loom to the vävstuga and I have been visiting it a few times a week when I officially was “out for a walk” or when Dan was out of the house. These moments were not very many, I have been able to weave only a couple of hours a week between early March and mid-June.

Warp and weft

I spun the yarn especially for the rya knots in this project. The warp and the weft are stashed and/or frogged handspun yarns. Oh, the joy of destashing my handspuns! I feel so much lighter now.

The warp and the weft yarns are stashed and/or frogged handspun yarns.

The main colour warp yarn is a 2-ply shetland yarn that was hibernating as a pair of half-knit bloomers that didn’t really sing to me. I frogged the project and soaked the yarn and it was fit to use as warp yarn. The stripes and the weft yarns are miscellaneous white and light grey odd skeins of singles that I have plied.

To knot or not to knot

I spun the rya yarns in February and March. Once the whole 1.5 kg rya fleece was spun I warped in the vävstuga and wove the border. I had brought a bread board to wrap the knot yarn around to be able to pre-cut the knots in equal lengths. I decided to go with 11 cm per knot with the yarn held double. The fold makes a sweet loop at the end and I think it brings extra life and character to the rya structure.

I prepare the rya knots by wrapping the yarn around a board and cut them across to get equal lengths.

I tied the knot over three warp threads and skipped one warp thread between knots. After one row of knots I made three shuttlings with the weft yarn (Stashed yarn from Norwegian NKS wool). You can read more about how I have knotted my rya knots here.

Play

One of the benefits of working with stashed yarns is the opportunity it presents to play. The warp is my canvas and the knots my watercolours. The sweet bonus is that I can paint the smooth side of the project too.

And that’s one of the beauties of a rya, you can choose which side you want facing. In the beginning (ryas have been used since probably the late 13th century in Sweden) were used as bed covers with the pile down against the person sleeping under it and the smooth side as the “public” side.

Stripes!

I played a lot with stripes in this project. A rya has two sides, one piled and one smooth. None of them is the right or wrong sides.

I decided on white-ish stripes for the warp, just because I wanted to. My stash contained a lot of natural colour handspun yarn and wanted to use them organized despite them all being odd yarns from my handspun stash. I went for white as a main colour weft yarn with light grey stripes. So the smooth side is basically checkered.

The smooth side has an interesting pattern.

I went for stripes in the rya knots too, in light and medium grey. This gave a third dimension on the smooth side, with both the colour and the knotted fashion of the rya yarn. It looks like a fancy binding but it’s just the result of the knots giving the warp thread bundles a bit of a waist. Still, it’s just a tabby weave.

Twist and knot direction

Just for fun I spun the white and gray yarns in different directions. I figured it wouldn’t hurt, and perhaps the light would be reflected differently on the white and grey areas or the piled texture would get more life.

Different spinning and folding directions in the rya yarns.

I also knotted the white and grey pile differently – the white with the fold to the right and the greys with the fold to the left. I’m not sure it makes any difference, but I wanted to explore these aspects.

Watercolour painting

The most fun part was using the individual knots pretty much like water colours on a canvas. With a rya I have the opportunity to pick the colours (and of course textures, materials etc) any way I like to create a pattern or image. I decided to play with the light and dark greys.

The dark and light ends of the rya. Do you see the diagonal of the change in shades? The pink spots on the light end is the weaving in of ends of the embroidery I made on the smooth side. I like having them there in the pile as a reminder of the smooth side.

In the beginning of the weave, let’s call it the bottom, I used only the dark grey yarn. For every stripe I wove I added some of the lighter grey from the right. At the top there were almost only light grey yarn. If you look at the rya from above you can se the subtle change from darker to the lighter grey. like the sun’s journey across the sky leaving a shadow spectrum over the rya bench pad in the course of the day.

Cutting the warp is dead scary.

Cutting the warp was really scary, but I did it and the finished weave looked lovely. The edges were reasonably even and there was less bubbles than I had expected (since there was a difference in elasticity in the white and grey warp yarns). No warp threads were broken and the weaving had gone very smoothly after all.

An embroidery to match the rya bench pad with the bench.

The last thing I did with the rya bench pad was to hem the warp edges and make an embroidery on the smooth side.

Time

Making a rya takes a lo-ho-hot of time. Mine is small, only 42×160 centimeters. The older ryas that were used as a bed cover would be close to ten times that size. I am in awe of anyone who has put so much time, love and skill in a project. But it was also necessary for staying warm and alive.

There is nothing I can do to speed the process up. The knots need time and that is what I have to give them. Even if I have been stressed in finding time to come to the weaving room nothing can rush me once I’m there. I’m just in the rya with the knots, once again feeling every fiber through my hands.

And that’s what crafting does to me. It’s there and it won’t be rushed. When I’m stressed crafting is one of the things that grounds me and gives me time to breathe, listen and just be.

Building the bench

The bench may look like a large project, but it didn’t take that much time. Buying the timber, getting it home and into the storage room, building and drilling holes for the graffiti took about 16 hours.

Weaving the bench pad

The bench pad is a whole different story, though.

The spinning of the rya yarn took, roughly calculated, 25 hours. One skein took about 2.5 hours (teasing, carding, spinning, plying) plus approximately 2 hours sorting and washing etc.

One report of weaving 7.5 minutes. That’s 7.5 rows per hour, so approximately 30 hours for weaving. Plus approximate spinning time for stashed yarns, let’s add another 10 hours for that. I would say, roughly calculated, 70 hours in total for spinning, warping, weaving, knotting and finishing. Now I am quite finished.

The bench pad is 160 cm long and 42 cm wide. There are 214 rows of rya knots that’s 4600 knots in total.

I used 506 meters (500 grams) of knot yarn. The total weight of the rya is 750 grams. And there are still 9 skeins of the white rya yarn left. Perhaps I will weave another rya, this time as a pillowcase for the sofa.

Gotta go, I have birthday cake to eat. I will sit on the bench pad with a ridiculously proud smile on my face.

750 grams and 4600 knots in a rya bench pad.

P.S. If you are (or become) a patron you will have access to my monthly digital postcards. The March and June postcards were secretly shot in the vävstuga as I made the rya.

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 missanything!
  • 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.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new 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.
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Flax community

Many of you may have heard of the project Berta’s flax, initiated by Austrian fiber artist Christiane Seufferlein. She got a chest full of hackled flax that came from relatives to Berta. She married in the 1950’s and, like most women at the time, she brought a chest of flax into her marriage. Today is all about flax community, over time and space.

Straw into gold, gold into dust

Berta’s flax chest was used literally as a treasure chest – if she was to lose her husband in any way the flax was her property to use as she liked. If times were hard she would be able to sell some of the flax to stay afloat. In the flax chest were also woven linen fabrics, from the finest table linen to coarser potato sack fabric.

Sweet Austrian flax and handwoven linen fabric.

Keeping a chest of flax was common in many parts of Europe at this time, at first as a dowry and sort of an insurance, and later as a sweet tradition. From the 1960’s though, few people were interested in the flax chests and many of them were burnt or buried.

A flax heroine

When Christiane got Berta’s flax she wanted to make use of it. So many chests of flax had been burned and destroyed. Christiane decided to spread the flax over the world to give it good homes. Berta’s flax flew far and wide, and when the chest was empty Christiane had got many more chests, some containing over 100 kilos of flax.

Flax to Sweden

Berta’s story and Christiane’s project fascinated me, both through the stories and the flax treasures and by its Austrian origin. Both my parents have Austrian descent and my father grew up in Austria. I decided to ask for a strick. Christiane sent it, but for one reason or another the flax decided to take almost a yearlong detour and it was just this week that it arrived here in Stockholm.

Austrian flax from 1858 or earlier.

Two of the stricks I got were from Anna Hanaberger. A linen merchant, Josef Riederer, had testamented two flax chests to Anna in 1858, over 160 years ago. Holding it in my hands makes my heart beat faster, imagining all the work that has been done by another flax community so many years ago.

Flax and linen, true treasures.

Christiane had sent me not only three stricks of golden flax, but also a piece of linen fabric. I had told her that my father was born and brought up in Austria, that a piece of his heart is always there and that I wanted to make something for him with the Austrian flax. She promised to put a surprise in the parcel and the fabric was the most exquisite surprise.

Flax community

By now Christiane has sent flax all over the world and the Berta’s flax community on Facebook has grown, it now has 2100 members. As my experience with spinning and fiber communities, the Berta’s flax community is one of kindness. All members are very helpful and passionate about fiber, spinning, keeping crafting techniques or sustainability.

Six stages of processed flax. The fibers get increasingly finer and cleaner.
All the steps side by side. From the left: Retted and unprocessed, broken, pulled, scutched, rough hackled and fine hackled.

The local community where Christiane lives in Austria keeps sending her chests of flax. Christiane keeps sending stricks out in the world, reminding us all of the flax community in another time, working together to equip young women with a solid insurance.

You can find the Berta’s flax community on Facebook.

1kvmlin

Meanwhile in Sweden: A couple of years ago a region in Sweden started the project 1kvmlin, translating to 1 square meter of flax, where flax seeds enough for one square meter was sent out to anyone who wanted to grow their own square meter of flax.

Dressing the distaff (left) and my flax harvests from 2014 to 2019 (right).

I had grown about that size since 2014 and decided to join the project. Since then the project has gone nation wide and people all over Sweden (and some neighbouring countries) participate. 2021 over 6000 people grew their own square meter of flax in the project.

One of two flax beds in my allotment this year. I wonder if the white wagtails slipped on the seeds.

The 1kvmlin project started with an old towel on the attic of ethnologist Inga Widhja. The towel was made from flax that she had grown in the garden with her grandmother. The grandmother had said to sow the seeds “close enough for the white wagtails to slip on.” They had gone through all stages of the process together and spun and woven that treasured towel. Inga’s stort was the starting point of 1kvmlin.

Flax summer

Last summer was my first real flax summer. I had got some flax from the 1940’s from my brother’s mother-in-law north of Stockholm. Her grandmother Anna had grown flax and sent it to a flax mill for processing. It had been kept in a chest, but not in stricks, so the part I got was quite tangled, but I re-hackled it, brushed and spun it into singles yarns.

Last summer I spun my brother’s mother-in-law’s grandmother Anna’s flax.

This summer I will spin the Austrian flax Christiane sent me. Perhaps I can take some of my handspun yarn to Austria later and knit it there, back where it once grew. If I’m lucky I will also be able to meet up with Christiane.

The flax community brings fiber people together through time and space. And by the goddesses do we need it in these times of trouble.

More resources:

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 missanything!
  • 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.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new 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.

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Scutching knife

There are so many beautiful antique scutching knives out there. In flea markets, yard sales and museums. Ornamented to fit a specific hand, often as a wedding or engagement gift. Clearly used by a skilled hand. A right hands. As a leftie I realized that I will never find an antique scutching knife for a leftie. But I worked myself around that.

With a simple search for skäktkniv or skäkteträ in the Swedish Digital museum you will find lots if beautiful old scutching knives. Here is one example with a sweet and plain design. And, as usual, made for a right-handed person.

Scutching knife from the Swedish Digital Museum.

While I have seen some neutral scutching knives (I actually have two neutral scutching knives, from the 1980’s), I have never seen one made specifically for a left-handed person. We are only about ten per cent of the population and in many cultures left-handedness has been frowned upon and even forbidden.

A new scutching knife

I follow a very talented wood worker on Instagram, Frej Lonnfors. He makes the most beautiful carving work. Last year he posted pictures of flax processing tools – exquisite hand distaffs, wheel distaffs and distaff pins. One day he posted a picture of a magnificent scutching knife. That’s when I realized that I could get my ornamented scutching knife. Not antique, but made to fit my hand, my left hand.

Fancy (left) side ornamented, working (right) side plain and with the maker’s mark.

I contacted Frej and he was happy to do it. This was in late October. He had several orders to complete and I wasn’t in any hurry to process my flax that time of year, so he put my request on hold until he had caught up with his work. Just this week I got my treasure in the mail.

The features

As I talked to Frej about the design my first and foremost wish was for it to be comfortable to work with and fit my hand. I wanted a subtle ornamentation and sent him a few images from the Digital museum to use as inspiration together with his own artistic expression. I also said I would like to feel the traces from the tools in my hand as I used the scutching knife.

Look at those carvings! And the sweet traces of the tools.

I think he captured my requests exquisitely. I love the tool traces inside the handle. The ornamentation is just perfectly subtle and I can see and feel the traces of the band knife and axe on the blade. Frej worked in birch wood, which is one of my favourites.

Test scutching

This week Dan, our daughter and I have been busy planning and organizing the reception for our son’s graduation from upper-secondary school, so there has been no time for anything else, let alone processing flax (I’m so tired I could sleep for a week). But I did carve out (pun very much intended) fifteen minutes to test drive my sweet new scutching knife on my very modest 2020 flax harvest that I broke six months ago.

A scutching knife in action! This is my homegrown flax from the 2020 harvest.

The scutching knife worked perfectly. It is lovely to hold both when it comes to ergonomics and the sensation of the wood in my hand. I love the notion of a scutching knife made just for me as I work with the flax I have grown right here in the flower bed outside our house.

Processes

As I work in the scutching part of the flax preparation process I think of the process of making the scutching knife. The designing, planning, rough carving, shaping, fine carving and finishing. I have no idea what the parts of the process are called, let alone what they are, but my point is that there is a specific process in the maker’s mind and hands. I have no part in this process, but it is still there when I use the scutching knife. Like a sweet whisper from a craft cousin, holding my hand as I scutch away with a singing heart. I can’t wait to prepare the rest of my 2020 and 2021 flax. Meanwhile, my 2022 flax is growing in the allotment beds.

The 2022 flax is cozily growing in the allotment bed.

Thank you Frej for my wonderful scutching knife. I am sure we will be very happy together for many flax harvests to come.

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 missanything!
  • 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.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new 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.
Posted on

Ground and explore

I have a daily yoga practice that I don’t want to be without. The time I give myself is a moment where I ground in my foundation and explore where my body can take me. On many of these explorations on the yoga mat I have felt a connection to spinning. Grounding and exploring is an important part of my spinning journey.

When I started spinning ten years ago I didn’t know much about spinning at all. I knew knitting and I knew that most of the Swedish wool was being wasted while we imported tons of wool from New Zealand every year. I had decided I wanted to spin a Z-plied yarn for two-end knitting, I knew these yarns were hard to come by. This was the base from which I started building my experience.

Ground

We all have a foundation to lean on, whether it is a few years of spinning practice, a lifetime as a sheep farmer, a reenactment passion or simply the gut feeling that spinning is for me. We all have some sort of connection to spinning, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it in the first place. This is our foundation, this is our grounding. A safe place where we can connect to what we know.

Pia-Lotta the sheep and mittens from her fleece. Photo by Dan Waltin
Pia-Lotta the finull sheep and two-end knitted mittens from her fleece. Photo by Dan Waltin

My foundation was knitting and a sense of responsibility for endangered techniques and wool waste. While knowing nothing at all about spinning I started from that very foundation, with a curiosity about wool as a knitting companion and as a natural resource that was right in front of me.

Explore

From that foundation I can start exploring what I don’t know, add what I learn to my foundation and explore some more from a new and expanded perspective. Explore the wool, the technique, the tools and my own capacity.

Since I got a box of raw fleece at my very first spinning lesson I got the opportunity to explore and get to know it. I explored the crimp, the elasticity and my technique. Even if I didn’t know it in so many words then, I did explore.

I explore weaving from my foundation as a spinner.

As I learned more I realized that there was a whole range of spinning techniques on the weaving end of the spectrum I decided to learn how to weave. My foundation was by then spinning and I could start from my handspun yarns. I made many mistakes as I explored what I could do and did learn a lot from it. I am still very much of a beginner in weaving. From my grounding as a spinner and with my handspun yarns as my most important foundation, I explore.

Dynamics

From my exploration point I can also go back to my foundation when things start feeling wobbly. The dynamic between grounding and exploring is a sweet motion between what I know and what I have the opportunity to learn, just a short reach away if I dare to take the step.

It’s up to me how far from my foundation I want to explore. As I had finished my two-end knitting yarn I made a pair of two-end knitting mittens. Far too loosely spun and with far too fine fibers in the yarn. As I realized this I went back to my home base, my foundation – I fulled the mittens quite heavily to make them more durable. I spun the yarn for my next two-end knitting project with stronger fibers.

A grey mitten with a venus symbol
I made my second two-end knitting yarn in a stronger wool. Photo by Dan Waltin.

Finding a dynamic between grounding and exploring is a sweet experience. Feeling confident in what I know and how far I can explore gives me strength to reach in new directions while standing strong in my foundation. Reflecting, analyzing and making new discoveries about myself as a spinner are a part of that dynamic. As I learn my foundation deepens, broadens and I can reach further and in new directions from there, just like a tree with deeper roots can stretch further than a sapling.

As my grounding grows, so can my exploration expand. I did make a second (and third) two-end knitting yarn and two-end knitted mittens from new foundations, reaching for further challenges.

The token of my inner artist

A year or so ago I found a bronze sculpture on Swedish eBay. A ballet dancer in a backbend pose, holding her raised ankle behind her. While balancing on the toes of her other leg she is firmly grounded in the floor. At the same time she explores her capacity to broaden her chest and bend her back. Strong, yet supple, grounded, yet open to new possibilities.

The bronze ballerina is the totem of my inner artist.

I needed her to come to me, and she did. She stands on a sideboard by the living room window, looking out over the lake and into the bright room. She is a token of my inner artist. Grounded in the safety of her foundation. Exploring upwards, outwards, forwards. Her future is bright, but she also has the capacity to face challenges and setbacks with her strength and calmness. She is a part of me.

Every time I practice yoga I see her and my heart sings. She stands beside my spinning wheel and I see her from there too. She reminds me to stand strong in my foundation and explore with curiosity and balance.

The ground will catch me

My ballet dancer is firmly rooted in the ground, yet she explores her capacity to open and stretch her body. Her whole body is attentive to this balance and while she stretches her mind she has full control of all the muscles that keep her upright. If she should fall the ground is there to catch her.

One of my very first weaving projects was full of breaking warp threads.

In one of my very first weaving projects over 30 of my warp threads broke. Very frustrating, no doubt, but my foundation was the handspun yarn and literally the foundation of the project. I know how much time and love I had spent spinning and that I couldn’t let the weave go to waste. I found out how to mend broken warp threads and saved my weave.

As a spinner I ground in my foundation, the ground that is true for me. Yours may be totally different. Our points of explorations will be different too. Yet, we both stand firmly on our respective grounds, reaching and exploring from there. If I fall the ground will catch me, just as your ground will catch you.

The teacher

As a teacher I find it extremely important to get to know the foundation of my students and their respective capacity to explore. I want them to find that dynamic between the points of grounding and exploration that makes them smile and sing “Aaahh!” as they see their progress and realize their own development. I want to be there, right with them as they start from their respective foundations.

Listen to this student as she listens to the wool and aaahhs over understanding carding on a new level.

I hear that aaahh every time I talk about the twist model and we practice opening up the twist. Not right away, but after a bit of practice it comes, I hear my students sing that aaahh, with a smile from ear to ear.

Seven spindle cases finished and ready for my A spindle a day class at Sätergläntan in July, five to go.

In mid July I will be back at Sätergläntan craft education center again, teaching the course A spindle a day to twelve students. I can’t wait to see their journeys. I will bring my yoga mat.

Resources

Below are some resources where you can explore from your foundation:

  • The five-day challenge Fleece through your senses, where you explore a fleece of your own from where you are and with the tools you have
  • The five-day challenge Hands-on, where you explore your hand roles in spinning and change hands to explore on a deeper level.
  • Know your fleece, a course where you go deeper into exploring a fleece of your own with some tools I provide.

Happy exploring!

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 missanything!
  • 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.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new 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.
Posted on

Sloyd

Sloyd. Ancient, smart, thrifty. The crafting of everyday objects with natural materials, your hands and simple tools. To me sloyd is also something that I can do sitting on a rock in the woods should I choose to. Just a pair of hand cards or combs and a spindle and I’m happily sloyding away.

The other day I got a fresh issue of Hemslöjd magazine in the mail. My heart sings when I get it. It is such a smart magazine with so much reading to dive into, so many crafters to admire and be inspired by. Brilliant people making beautiful objects and utensils with simple tools and natural materials. On the cover of this issue is Kristin Sundberg, a crafting friend of mine. I’ll get back to her in a minute.

Sloyd

The word hemslöjd means something like simple crafting for your household needs. The word slöjd, or sloyd, is one of the few Swedish loanwords in English. Slöjd comes from the word slug, which means sly, skilled or handy. Sloyd is smart.

I’m practicing my nalbinding needle carving skills. These are from my first and second sessions this spring. My favourite shape is the leftmost needle. Sadly it cracked down the middle as I drilled the hole.

Slöjd is also a subject in Swedish schools. It was was established in the Swedish school system in 1878 and is still a mandatory subject. Until 1962 girls learned textile crafts and boys wooden crafts, but since then all children learn to sloyd both soft and hard materials.

I eBayed handwoven tea towels and stitched initials for my son’s friends for their graduation.

Every now and then debates about the right of this school subject to exist emerge. Why spend time sewing and carving when you can focus on more important subjects like history or maths? This is a common argument. What would happen though, if we didn’t learn how to make things, how to mend, create or see the potential in a piece of cloth, fiber or wood? How would our brains look if we didn’t nurture what I believe is an inherent need to create with our hands, not to mention survive?

I streamlined the process of nalbinding carving for my third session. Still. I enjoyed every minute of it.

In 2018 a doctor concluded that the medical students’ dexterity in stitching up patients had decreased significantly during the past few years. He believed the reason to be too much swiping and too little fine motor crafting skills. Again, sloyd is smart.

The magic in the making

Back to the Hemslöjd magazine. Kristin Sundberg on the cover of the latest issue is the most sloyd I know. I met her at Sätergläntan when I was teaching supported spindle spinning a few years ago and she was my student. She was a total beginner at spinning. Crafting runs in her veins and she developed her skills remarkably during the five-day course.

Kristin’s main material is wood, though. On her YouTube channel she copies old objects that are mainly seen in museum these days. For Kristin the making and the love for the sloyding is more important than the skills in the techniques. She sees magic in the making, in the sloyding.

Kristin Sundberg with her copy of a birch bark rain hat. Kristin is so sloyd.

Kristin is such an inspiration to me and so many others. You can watch her videos on her YouTube channel.

The sloyd process

There are so many things I love about Kristin’s approach. The love for the material and the making. The story the material tells you if you take time to listen to it. To me the finished object, yarn in my case, is beautiful, but also so much more than an object.

A stick, a weight and some wool and I’m home.

My skeins remind me of all the time I have spent with the material, the techniques and the process. All the mistakes I have made, all I have learned and all the thoughts that have gone through my mind during the process. It also reminds me that the sloyd is in me. With my body I control tension, speed and the quality of the yarn. Through my body I communicate with the material and melt into its will.

Left: Just a few finishing touches on these before they are ready for some nalbinding. Right: Finished! They are definitely not perfect, but I made them with love.

Today the need to make things for your household needs may not be as obvious as it once was. But I believe we still need to make, with emphasis on make. Perhaps we need the process of making and creating to instill a sense of self-sufficiency. I can make, therefore I can survive. I may not need more nalbinding needles, but I need to make them, to feel the wood in my hands, to see the transformation from stick to a tool for more crafting. And who knows, I may give some of them away.

Yup, sloyd is smart.

My nalbinding needles

This is how I made my nalbinding needles:

  • I used a twig-free maple sapling I found near the house. It had a diameter of about 2 centimeters. Make sure you are allowed to harvest the material. You can also use dry wood, a firewood log for example.
  • I cut the sapling in smaller pieces, around 20 centimeters long, enough for two needles lengthwise.
  • With an axe I split the pieces in two.
  • I made sure to carve away the soft core.
  • With long strokes with the knife I roughly carved the wood into a flat shape with straight edges.
  • With a starting material of around 20 centimeters there is room for two needles. I chose to place them “eye to eye”, so that the holes would be placed near the middle of the material and the tips at each end. You can see the placement of the eyes in the featured photo.
  • I drilled three holes in a row for the eye with a 3 millimeter drill (I tried a 4 millimeter too, but I preferred the smaller diameter). Making the eye is the most crucial part of the making of the needles. Therefore it’s a good idea to make the eye early in the process. If things should go south you won’t have spent too much time fine-tuning the needle.
  • Now I created the shape of the needles and tidied up the holes.
  • I let the needles dry for a day or two before I did the finishing touches on them. The last thing I did was to flatten the wood slightly with the back of the knife.
  • Optional 1: You can sand the needles. Once, on a carving lesson I took, I asked if we were supposed to sand the insects we were making at the time. She stopped and gave me a stare (with a hint of a smile) and said: “Sanding carved objects is of the devil!”. So I don’t sand. I have learned to love the traces of the knife when I carve. I did use a round file to sand the inner walls of the eye, though. I have neither the tools nor the skills to carve them properly.
  • Optional 2: You can place the needles in a glass of rape seed oil for a week to make it more resistant. Nalbinding with a yarn with lanolin left in it will achieve something similar.
I’m nalbinding with a needle I made a few years ago from an elm we had to fell outside our house.

If you have any tips for carving nalbinding needles, do share.

Happy sloyding!

The upcoming blog posts may be scarce and short. Our son is graduating from upper secondary school in a couple of weeks and we have a lot to do to prepare for the reception.

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 missanything!
  • 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.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new 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.
Posted on

Knit (spin) Sweden! – second edition

Just a short message today. Knit (spin) Sweden! – second edition is finally available! It ships from May 25th but you can order it now on Amazon.

Sara Wolf has worked hard to get a second edition publish and it’s finally here! The paper quality in this edition is thicker and gives the photos more justice. Our translator Anna Lindemark has worked equally hard with proof reading and fact checking the English version while at the same time translating the book to Swedish. This second edition is in English though. Hopefully the Swedish version will be published soon too.

You can read more about Knit (spin) Sweden! here.

As you are reading this I am on the ferry to Åland. I’m giving a presentation and workshop about Åland wool from a spinner’s perspective to the Åland sheep association. I may also find myself a ladder and take a dip in the Baltic Sea.

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 missanything!
  • 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.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new 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.
Posted on

I am a spinner

Many people have asked me how I started spinning. I tell them my story, how it began and how it continued. But the other day someone asked me how I became a spinner. And that is to me a totally different question with a totally different answer. During the first few years after having learned some basics of spinning I could say I know how to spin. For the past few years, though, I can say I am a spinner.

When I stream my webinars I always begin by telling the story of how I began. The very first time I had any kind of spinning tool in my hand was on my first spinning lesson. I got a very heavy suspended spindle in one hand, a pair of hand cards in my other and a cardboard box of the newly shorn fleece from Pia-Lotta the Swedish finull lamb in my lap (You can read about how I began spinning and how I continued in the two very first posts in this blog).

From fleece to project

That is how I started and that is how I want to approach wool – I want to go through the whole process, feel the fibers go through my hands every step of the way from raw fleece to a finished yarn and get to know the wool as I work with it.

On my very first spinning lesson I got to dive into Pia-Lotta’s beautiful finull fleece.

Back then, in 2011, I didn’t know that that was the way I wanted to approach wool, because it was the only way I knew how to approach wool. After a while I did try commercially prepared wool, but it didn’t sing to me.

Doing or being?

A few years ago I listened a lot to Brenda Dayne’s brilliant podcast Cast-on. In one of the episodes she talked about knowing how to knit versus being a knitter. I’m not exactly sure how she phrased it, but her reflection stuck with me. She talked about being a knitter as something more, something deeper than just knowing how to knit.

As I reflect over being a spinner as something deeper than knowing how to spin I think about spinning as the main event, something I always come back home to. Everything I do has its foundation in the wool and in the purpose of spinning. When I discover a fleece I do so with the intention to find its soul and translate it into a yarn with my hands and some tools. When I knit, weave, nalbind or otherwise make a textile of my handspun yarn it is to continue that intention and make the yarn shine in the project. I do spin for a certain project to, but always with the spinning as the foundation and guide.

Spinning is something deeper to me than just a craft. It is a way of being. I am a spinner. Photo by Dan Waltin.

As a comparison, I know how to weave, but I definitely don’t consider myself a weaver and I don’t think I will ever become one. Don’t get me wrong, I love weaving. But weaving is far too complicated for me and I just know the basics. Still, enough to make my yarns beautiful as a woven fabric. The reason I learned how to weave was just that, to be able to use yarns from a wider spectrum of handspun yarns than just for knitting purposes. I learned how to weave for the sake of spinning.

Following my inner guide

To me, being a spinner also means allowing the wool to be the guide, alongside my inner guide, which would be the experience I have built through the years. My hands know and remember earlier projects. I can trust that knowledge to guide me in the fleece I have in front of me. I know enough to trust my experience. I also know that I can make mistakes and learn from them. Perhaps even more than if everything went smoothly.

I listen to the wool and let it guide me as I work with it. Photo by Dan Waltin.

With the experience I can also see patterns on a larger scale, connecting the dots and see a larger whole. While grounded in my experience I also have the confidence to explore new perspectives of a fleece and see where it takes me.

Grounded in my experience I can experiment and find new perspectives.

Spinning is nourishing to me. My main creative output is through handspinning (and to some extent writing), but spinning also gives me something more, a peace of mind, a moment to be in my spinning bubble and just breathe. In that flow of creativity and nourishment I find a sweet balance that I don’t want to be without. A balance where I am a spinner.

Finding the shift

So, back to the question of when I became a spinner. I look through my Ravelry project page to see if I can find a point in time or mind when I shifted from knowing how to spin to becoming a spinner.

One of my first handspun projects back in 2012 was Veera Välimäki’s Color affection, knit in my handspun natural colour alpaca yarn, hand carded and spun on a supported spindle. Photos by Dan Waltin.

For the first few years I did make handspun projects, mostly knitted, alongside commercial yarn items. But in 2014 something happened. A Fair Isle vest finished in May 2014 is the beginning of a turn where 75% of my projects are handspun. What happened during or leading up to the vest project?

Norwegian breeds

I had knit the Fair Isle vest with small skeins of yarn I spun from Norwegian breeds. In 2013, when I had got my first spinning wheel, I had taken a summer course in spinning with my spinning friend Anna.

Old Norwegian Spælsau, part of Kia’s fiber club. Photo by Dan Waltin.

I also entered a fiber club with rare and endangered Norwegian breeds hosted by my wool friend Kia. Kia has had a long career in wool and has worked as a wool classifier in Norway for many years. Tons and tons of wool has passed through her hands and she knows wool deep in her core (she is a wooler by heart). In four deliveries I got fleece from different Norwegian breeds that were either rare, endangered or both, all hand picked by Kia.

More than just a vest

I spun the yarns and enjoyed the characteristics of the different breeds. Kia wrote with love about the breeds, how rare a certain quality or colour was and what she imagined that particular wool to become. Her passion is such an inspiration and it lit a spark in me. I decided to make something real with the small skeins of Norwegian yarn. Thinking back of when I knit the vest I remember a special connection to the yarn and how it turned out in the Fair Isle pattern.

Spinning for and knitting Ivy League Vest by Eunny Jang may have been the place in time and mind where I became a spinner. Photo by Dan Waltin.

At the time I didn’t know I had become a spinner. In hindsight though, Kia’s beautiful fiber club and my relationship to the yarn as I knit that vest can have been a place in time and in my mind where spinning became something more than spinning just as a craft. It became a part of me as a person and I became a spinner.

Kia’s passion for wool is truly inspiring.

I have known for some years now that I am a spinner, but it has never occurred to me to look for the shift between knowing how to spin and being a spinner. So thank you JM for your question. It allowed me to explore and learn something new about myself as a spinner. And thank you Kia for holding my hand as I did become a spinner.

Do you know when you became a spinner?

The wool is my guide.

“Do you think you will ever stop being a spinner?” my husband asked me after I had enthusiastically told him about finding a point in time when I shifted from knowing how to spin to becoming a spinner. “If you for some reason take a break for a while, will you stop being a spinner?” A terrifying thought, no doubt, but probably possible. We never know what life throws at us. I’ll think about that tomorrow.

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.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new 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.
  • 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.
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Spin where you are

A woman spinning on a supported spindle.

It’s easy to get carried away or stressed by everything you see other spinners do on social media, especially since they only show a small and polished portion of reality. Today I encourage you to spin where you are, in terms of place, tools, skills and mind.

I am a volunteer cultivation advisor at our allotment association. Many of the tenants are enthusiastic and dream of abundance in bloom and harvest. But depending on the circumstances of the allotment it is not always possible to grow the plants they have dreamed of.

For the past week I have been preparing a presentation for the allotment tenants about cultivating where we are, in our allotment and the context in which it is situated – the type of soil it offers, the trees around it and the roots underneath it. I want the allotments gardeners to be able to grow an allotment in their context and with their experience. It may flourish, just not always in the crops they had imagined.

Josefin the cultivation advisor. Parsley is a perfect crop for a shady patch. Also not very appealing to slugs and deer, it seems.

As I was planning the lecture I saw parallels to spinning. Sometimes I get the sense that spinners feel bad because they think they should be able to spin better, more and know more techniques. Spinning to me is a place of ease, an activity that doesn’t make demands on me and a place of allowing. But it’s also easy to get carried away from things you see other spinners do online or in person. Today I want to encourage you to spin where you are.

Experience

We are all on different levels. Some people have spun for decades and some for only weeks. Even if the experienced spinner probably will know a thing or two more than the beginner we all bring our unique perspectives. I love being a beginner since I don’t feel any expectations. I don’t know any of the established dos and don’ts. Sooner or later I will, and I will also learn why they have been labeled as dos and don’ts, but in the moment I look at the craft with fresh and innocent eyes.

Processed flax from my experimental flax patch 2014–2019. I was once a beginner. Year by year I have added to my experience bank. Some years I succeed and some I don’t. But I always learn and that’s my goal with growing flax.

I learn a lot from my students, sometimes I think I learn more than the students themselves. Often the questions from a beginner give me more to reflect on that the question from the experienced spinner. A beginner will challenge my established pattern of teaching and understanding spinning. I need to challenge my methods of teaching, peel off the layers of my habitual patterns and come back to that blank slate to find a channel to the beginner.

A beginner spinner challenges my way of teaching and talking about spinning. I need to find the channel to where they are in their spinning . Supported spindle and bowl by Björn Peck.

I have actually been a beginner several times as a spinner, especially connected to changing hands in the spinning project. If you are up for an adventure, take my five-day challenge Hands-on, where you will play with switching your spinning and fiber hands.

Tools

There are a lot of spinning tools out there and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by them. Like so many other hobbies, spinning can be a tool sport, but it doesn’t have to be. All you need is fiber and a weight or a stick and you’re good to go. Even if I have a lot of spindles I only have two spinning wheels, one of which is my stationary wheel that I use. I don’t own a drum carder, wool picker or blending board. My go-to tools for fiber preparation is my hand cards and my combs, sometimes a flicker, sometimes just my hands.

I use combs and/or cards for nearly every spinning project.

It’s a great idea to try new tools at spinning guilds or fiber festivals and see what they are like. Chew on them for a bit. Do they suit you? Your wallet? Your home? Use what you have and what you are comfortable with.

Time

Sometimes we don’t feel we have enough time to spin. So many thing crave our attention. But even just a few minutes of spinning/wool preparation/knitting or just cuddling with a staple can get us a long way. I like to see spinning as a state of mind or an inner process rather than a craft or something that demands a physical result.

I'm listening to my Icelandic wool.
I’m listening to my Icelandic wool. Sometimes just digging your hands in raw fleece is enough to feel the closeness to the wool and to getting to know it.

Sometimes we do have times but don’t feel we produce enough yarn in that time. To me, time is a superpower. The more time I spend with wool the more I get to know it. And for me, preparing with hand tools and spinning on spindles give me more quality in the time I spend with the wool. The slowness allows me to spend more time with each fiber, getting to know the wool, how it behaves and how it wants to be spun.

Place

Spinning where you are can of course also mean physically, in a certain space. Sometimes there just isn’t enough space to keep the tools you dream of. I would love to get hold of a walking wheel, which isn’t very likely since they are very rare here, but even if I would there would be no space for it.

I’m spinning where I am. By Lake Torneträsk in Sápmi in this case, with a suspended spindle and a pair of mini combs.

Other times I’m spinning away from home, perhaps in the woods or on the train. It’s not always possible to bring and use a lot of tools and I need to negotiate with myself to find a solution that allows me to spin where I am.

Mind

I have had very hearty conversations over the years with students and supporters who talk about spinning as therapy more than anything else. A place to rest their minds, without expectations or prestige. A place where they can peel off the demands of the world around them and just be in the process. I imagine a lot of emotions are spun into the yarn from those sessions. Which, in itself could be quite therapeutic. A skein to some day look back at and remember where you were emotionally at the time.

Spinning for the soul.

Spinning for me is quite meditative. Just as the fibers come from the fiber supply, into the twist and onto the shaft or bobbin, so do my thoughts. Lightly effortless and and without expectations. They come and I let them go.

For meditative aspects of spinning, watch the videos A meditation and A spinning meditation.

Result

Whether we spin for the process, the project, the mind or a quantitative goal we always get a result, even if we don’t always think so. The result can be a meter, a skein, a collection of samples, relaxed shoulders, a balanced mind. Or, sometimes we get a result, an outcome or reaction much later, a cumulative effect of the superpowers of spinning.

Relaxed shoulders and a balanced mind can be a result too.

When I get migraines I spin to get some space, a moment to focus my dull mind on something other than the nails-on-the-blackboard sensation in my head and all my senses. The sensations don’t go away, but I can relax some from them for a little while, catch my breath and get a sense of ease from the pain. Even if the pain comes back afterwards I’m convinced that the room to breathe I get from spinning through migraines does me good in the long run.

Creativity comes from within because it is there and needs to come out, not because anyone else needs it to be in a certain way. Grow your spinning garden in the abundance that is available there and then. Be kind to yourself. Spin for you and spin where you are.

I’m going to sow my flax patch today.

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.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new 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.
  • 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.
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Reciprocity

Reciprocity: from the Latin word reciprocus, meaning ‘moving backwards and forwards’. I buy wool, worth so much more and on a completely different scale than the money I paid for it. A gift from the sheep. I give back in the skill and love I invest in working with it from fleece to textile.

When I see a fleece I see a gift. Even if I have bought the wool for money there is something more, something bigger than a monetary value in the material. A sheep farmer tended the sheep and the pastures. The sheep managed the landscape and grew the wool. These are gifts that work in a dimension way above and beyond money.

I reflect today on reciprocity. On the sharing of gifts that go backwards and forwards in a slow, sweet and ongoing dance between the souls who once took a first step to the beat of the sharing of gifts.

The gifts of wool

There are so many gifts in the wool. Gifts that come sweetly packed in curls and waves. And, if you look close enough, layers and layers of gifts as you peel them off humbly, slowly and mindfully.

Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in her beautiful and important book Braiding Sweetgrass:

“Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.”

I do my best to listen to the wool with open eyes and an open heart while also reflecting over this on the blog and when I teach spinning and wool handling. I’m forever grateful for the wisdom of book, what it has taught me and what it keeps teaching me as long as I pay attention and listen. Read this book. It has helped me understand so much more and on a much deeper level about the relationships we have with each other and with nature.

The gift of wool in itself

The first and perhaps the most obvious gift is the wool in itself – an exquisite material that will keep me and my loved ones warm and safe. A material that has so many superpowers and so many manifestations as finished textiles.

My very first skein of handspun yarn. Fine finull lamb's wool, hand carded on rusty cards and plied with some fawn alpaca since I didn't have enough fleece.
My very first skein of handspun yarn. Fine finull lamb’s wool, hand carded on rusty cards and plied with some fawn alpaca since I didn’t have enough fleece.

I’m grateful for that first spinning lesson almost ten years ago when I got a box of just-shorn finull wool in my lap, a spindle and a pair of handcards. Back then I didn’t understand the greatness of this single moment, but I think about it often, smiling in my heart at what it has given me.

The gift of characteristics

The characteristics of each individual fleece, whether it’s the shine, the softness the strength or the colour, are all a gift. Every characteristic is something I can work with and learn from. From all the gifts I get from the characteristics of the fleece I want to give back by making the most of them, by making them shine in the yarn and allow the soul of the fleece to sparkle.

The gift of learning

By exploring the wool as I work with it through every step from raw fleece to a finished yarn or textile I learn what it is about, what its strengths are and how I can work with it to honur the sheep that gave me its wool.

Carding the wool by hand gives me the opportunity to listen to it. If I pay attention I will hear it whisper to me how it works and how it likes to be treated.

As I tease the wool I learn about the elasticity and viscosity of the wool. As I card or comb I learn about the length of the fibers and how they relate to each other. When I spin I experience the elasticity, viscosity, length and relationships again, confirming my previously gained knowledge, provided I have listen well enough. In knitting, weaving or whatever technique I use, I learn how the yarn behaves as a material in its new shape. The things I learn I pay forward in courses and blog posts to my students and supporters.

The gift of the craft

I have learned so much about spinning and wool handling since that first day when I got the box of finull wool in my lap. Yet I know I have so much more to learn. The aim of my first yarn was to spin a Z-plied yarn for two-end knitting. While I did manage to spin S and ply Z the yarn was not fit to use for anything really. I had the naïve idea that I would be able to spin something that in both quality and quantity would be enough for a textile that I would want to wear.

Soft and thin yarn from very fine finull lamb's wool. Way too soft for two-end knitting.
Pia-Lotta the finull lamb gave me my very first wool. Eventually I spun a yarn for two-end knitting that was way too soft and underspun. The mittens I made have been worn, loved and mended.

Eventually I did spin my first yarn for two-end knitting, from that very first fleece. It was way underspun and way too soft. But I didn’t realize that back then, it dawned on me years later when I spun my third or fourth yarn for two-end knitting. Now, at my fifth or sixth two-end knitting yarn I still learn. How to process, spin, ply and sample to create a yarn I can use and enjoy. Regardless of whether I can actually use and enjoy it I know that I will learn from it.

Every bag needs a scrumptious lining! In this case a vintage upholstery fabric I got from Swedish e-Bay. Photo by Dan Waltin.
Photo by Dan Waltin.
I learned a lot about how not to spin a warp yarn in one of my very first weaving projects , a pillowcase (left). And I kept learning about narrow warps and fuzzy yarn in later backstrap woven projects (middle and right). All three projects are spun on different kinds of spindles.

Crafts leading to new crafts

The gift of the craft is also about having the fortune of actually knowing a craft, knowing how to keep me and my loved ones warm and safe.

After having learned to weave I have been able to improve my weaving yarns. For the gift of wool I give back by making the yarns sparkle. Outercoat fibers of Klövsjö and Härjedal wool spun worsted on a suspended spindle. Used in a backstrap woven bag (shown above). Photo by Dan Waltin.

By learning how to spin I have also visited other crafts. As my spinning journey developed I realized that I needed to learn how to weave to be able to spin a wider spectrum of yarns. Gifts of new crafts came. I am definitely still a beginner at weaving, but I still love all the weaving I can do. Learning how to weave has in turn taught me about how I want my weaving yarns.

The gift of the process

Mmm… the process. Not only the process from the newly shorn fleece through preparing, spinning, plying, finishing and making a textile, but the process in the hands and the brain during whatever step of the process I am enjoying right now. The process of mindfully picking lock by lock from the fleece, of dancing the teased wool through cards or combs and of feeding the yarn into the twist.

The gift of process, where I find a sense of balance in a space that is my own.

The process gives me the gift of space, balance, lightness and freedom, such precious gifts. When my hands and my brain are in the process my shoulders relax. I breathe slower and deeper. The wool enters my hands with the gift of touch, rhythm and ease. As a person living with chronic migraines the process gives me a moment of focus on something else than the vize-like pressure on my senses, a moment to breathe easier and be somewhere else than in the migraine.

When I am in the process I am in a room that is my own, where thoughts are welcome to come and go just as the fibers come and go. There is a sense of allowing, lightness and ease in my room. A sacred place where listening and kindness are keys. I like to think that being in my spinning process makes me a more balanced and humble person, gifts that I hope I am able to spread to the people around me.

The gift of mistakes

Sometimes I think I learn more from my mistakes than I do when everything runs smoothly. At least I learn more suddenly. I know by now that mistakes are good – by making a mistake and analyzing it I will hopefully learn – hands-on – why it happened and what I can do to avoid it the next time.

I embrace my mistakes, whether it is through a sock yarn that wears out after a couple of weeks, worn-out elbows or a sock yarn that turned into string. By looking at them I remember why I made the mistake and how I can do better next time.

Every time I look at the mistake I will remember the circumstances around it. I embrace my mistakes and am thankful for them. Even if I may growl a bit when they happen I know I will have use for the experience sooner or later.

The gift of time

Time is an essential part of spinning. Not only the time it takes to actually spin enough yarn for a project, but also the time spent with the woo. The simpler the tools and setup the closer I come to the wool. The less of the mechanics that are in the tools the more the mechanics are in me. I become a part of the tool – I am the tool as I spin on spindles, I am the loom when I weave with a backstrap loom and I am the sewing machine when I hand stitch.

Combed Swedish Leicester wool spun on a suspended spindle into an embroidery yarn. The yarn got me a gold medal in the 2020 Swedish spinning championships. The yarn was part of my auction for Ukraine and now lives in Australia.

All these simple tools take time, but it is also time spent with the wool and with the techniques. This goes for the preparation of the wool too – I want to do all the steps myself and with hand tools, from sorting the wool through picking, teasing, processing and spinning. The time I spend with the wool through all the steps of the process is time and opportunity to listen to the wool and learn. Slow is a superpower and time spent with the wool a gift.

The gift beyond time

Spinning is a space for me, a sacred space beyond time. A space where I get to go with the flow of the fibers, listen to them to understand what steps to take next. In my spinning space I allow myself to just be with the wool and receive the reflections that gently glide through my mind, without expectations, without restrictions.

There is a dimension beyond time that is an extra precious gift, a sacred space where I am allowed to listen to the wool and just be. Photo by Dan Waltin

The gift beyond time is one that goes deeper than any of the other gifts I receive from spinning. I can’t pay back for this gift. But I can express my gratitude by gently dressing my reflections in the sweetest words I can think of and share them with the world.

Reciprocating the gifts

I want to reciprocate al these gifts through the time, skill and love I give back to the wool as I work with it from fleece to a finished yarn or textile. As part of a web of reciprocity it is my responsibility to pay back or forward for the gifts I receive. By being ever curious I want to find the superpowers of the wool and make it the star of the project I make. Even if I can’t give much more back to the sheep and the sheep farmer than my gratitude I can always give it forward by my presence in the wool, by listening to what it teaches me and by sharing my creative process with the world.

Backwards and forwards

I know my gifts will be returned to me or paid forward one way or another. Perhaps someone who reads what I do helps another spinner find a new perspective or listen to the wool. I will continue to return or pay the gifts offered to me forward. Reciprocity seems to work that way, like a dance you dance together, giving and receiving.

Photo by Claudia Dillmann
Photo by Claudia Dillmann
I’m spinning a nalbinding yarn from the wool of Elsa the Gestrike sheep. She has now given birth to the lambs Anita and Barbro (Middle newborn, right five days old).

I write mindfully about the beautiful wool from Elsa the Gestrike sheep. When Elsa a few months later gives birth to two sweet black ewe lambs with white tufts on their foreheads I get the honour of naming them. I pick the names Barbro and Anita, after two of the women who back in the 1980’s and -90’s nurtured a couple of the oldest flocks of what later was established as Gestrike sheep. As a thank you to generations of sheep farmers I give back again to the sheep and the breed by naming the lambs after some of the pioneers.

Today is my 49th birthday. Perhaps writing this blog post is a part of a returning pre-birthday process of contemplating the years gone by and the years to come. I have an old wise woman deep inside and I’m very fond of her. As time goes by I like to think I’m getting closer to her. I do my best to treat her lovingly and respectfully. In return I will hopefully get some of her wisdom.

I receive so many gifts from you, all sweetly wrapped in kindness and experience. This post is a gift back. I’m so grateful for you all, for dancing to the beat of reciprocity and the sharing of gifts.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media: