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Teasing

When someone oohs and aahs over a handspun yarn I say “It’s all in the preparation”. When someone oohs and aahs over a mean hand-carded rolag I say “It’s all in the pre-preparation”. Today’s post is all about teasing.

Teasing is a way to open up the wool. Either as a single preparation or as a pre-preparation before the main preparation. Teasing wool before carding is an enormous help in getting even, high quality rolags that are a joy to spin.

Staples of rya wool and mohair, wool teased with combs and hand-carded rolags like peas in a pod.
Staples of rya wool and mohair, wool teased with combs and hand-carded rolags like peas in a pod.

I never put wool on my hand cards unless it is teased first. To me, carding is about arranging the fibers evenly and loftily. To do that – without putting too much strain on me and the fibers – I therefore tease first. Without exception. When I teach spinning I always include fiber preparation and teasing.

Why teasing?

When I tease I

  • open up the wool from its state as a bundle of staples. Air comes in between the fibers and makes the fibers more evenly distributed
  • spend more time with the wool
  • prepare to card high quality rolags.

With teasing I can

  • get more evenly carded rolags with less strain on my body and the wool
  • blend fibers, lengths fleeces or colours
  • remove vegetable matter
  • get rid of the shortest fibers
  • leave the teased wool before I card, while carded and combed wool needs to be treated as fresh produce
  • experience more ease and joy when I card.

Without teasing before carding

  • the wool will be more dense and require more force to separate
  • I may strain my shoulders, wrists and arms
  • fibers may break, leaving nepps in the preparation
  • the rolags will be of lesser quality
  • there may be a lot more waste than with teasing.
I gently add the teased wool to my hand card to create an evenly arranged rolag.
I gently add the teased wool to my hand card to create an evenly arranged rolag.

How I tease

I use different tools for teasing – my hands, combs and flickers. Which tool I use when depends on a variety of circumstances.

Teasing with combs

My go-to tool of teasing is combs, usually my larger combs with a combing station that I clamp onto a table (but of course hand held combs work well too). I can tease larger amounts of wool this way and without putting too much strain on my hands and wrists. When I tease with my combs I also have the opportunity to blend different breeds, fiber lengths or colours. You can see a video here where I tease wool that I blend with recycled sari silk. Teasing with combs also helps getting rid of vegetable matter.

Pulling the teased wool straight out of the stationary comb, perpendicular to the tines.
Pulling the teased wool straight out of the stationary comb, perpendicular to the tines.

Teasing with combs is similar to combing in the middle but different in the beginning and in the end. When I tease with combs I don’t consider the direction of the staples the way I would if I were combing – I just make sure there is as little wool as possible on the handle side of the comb. Other than that I just add the wool as it comes.

Värmland wool teased with combs, ready for carding.
Värmland wool teased with combs, ready for carding.

The middle part, the actual combing, is the same as when I comb for a top. When I pull the wool off the comb I don’t pull it in one long section like I would if I were combing, I just pull it in fiber-length tufts.

All my combs come from Gammeldags in Sweden and I highly recommend them, both the mini combs and the larger ones with a combing station to clamp onto the table. You can read more about combs in general and the Gammeldags combs in particular here.

Teasing with a flicker

In some circumstances I use a flicker to tease my wool. This could be if there are certain things I want to remove with the flicker. One example is Swedish finull. Since the finull fibers are so fine the tips can be brittle. To avoid nepps in my yarn I use the flicker to allow any breaking tips to break in the flicker and stay there instead of ending up as nepps in my yarn.

Another example is if the staples have a lot of kemp (or too short fibers in general) in the bottom. A flicker can do a good job in removing some of the kemp.

  • Teasing with a flicker to keep the colour variegation.
  • A person combing a staple of wool.
    I gently combed each lock separately not to disturb the structure of the fibers. Photo by Dan Waltin.
  • After flick carding the staples a lot of the kemp was left in the flick card.
    After teasing the staples with a flicker a lot of the kemp was left in the flicker.
Teasing with a flicker to keep a colour variegation or fiber distribution (left and middle) and for removing kemp (right).

To flick a staple I hold the cut end firmly and brush out the tip end with the flicker, using my thigh as support and a piece of leather as protection. I turn the staple and brush the other side of the tip. When the tip is teased I flip the staple to brush out both sides of the cut ends. I need to hold the staple quite close to the cut end to avoid having shorter fibers (but long enough for spinning) to stay in the flicker and go to waste.

Flicking as main preparation

I also use a flicker if I want to spin straight from the staples. Perhaps I want to keep something – a colour variegation or a fiber distribution. The flicker opens up the staple without disturbing the fibers in the staple too much and makes the spinning smoother. I used a flicker for my Icelandic fleece that I spun raw from the lock. I teased the staples with a flicker first and then opened up the teased staples further with my hands.

  • Close-up of a person spinning on a supported spindle.
    I’m spinning counter-clockwise to get a Z-plied yarn for twined knitting. Photo by Dan Waltin.
I’m spinning Icelandic wool from raw, flicked staples (left). In other projects I have spun flicked staples on a supported spindle to keep fiber distribution or colour variegation (middle and right).

Another project where I used flicked locks as the main preparation was a pair of two-end knitted mittens. I wanted to keep the colour variegation in the yarn and spun a z-plied yarn from teased locks with a supported spindle. You can read about the finished two-end knitted mittens here. The post includes links to earlier parts of the process like preparation and spinning.

Flicking before combing

On some occasions I also use my flicker before combing a top. One example is a Swedish Gotland fleece that had very dense staples that were felted in the cut ends. Opening up the staples before combing made the combing a lot smoother and there was a lot less waste than without the teasing. Similarly, I have teased locks of a Norwegian NKS fleece that had solidified lanolin in the tips (in the post you can watch videos where I show the results with and without teasing before combing). Teasing the staples with a flicker resulted in less work for me and less wool waste.

Using a card as a flicker

Another option is to tease individual staples with your hand cards and get the same results as with a flicker:

Teasing individual staples with a card as a flicker.
  • Place the tip end on the upper edge of a hand card with a hand on top
  • Pull the staple from the carding pad, resisting with the top hand a few times until the tips are teased
  • Flip the staple and repeat for the cut end.

My flicker comes from Louët, but both Ashford and Clemes & Clemes have flickers. Clemes & Clemes has something called a lock pop that seems interesting. You can use a dog or cat brush as a flicker too (or several, they will definitely break). In this video I tease individual staples with a dog comb.

Teasing by hand

If I don’t want to bring too many tools or if I want to stay really close to the wool I tease with my hands. I hold the staple in my hand and tease perpendicularly to the direction of the staple. It obviously takes longer than teasing with a tool, but the benefit is the time you spend with the fiber, getting to know it and how it behaves.

Teasing by hand: Hold the staple lengthwise between your hands and pull almost fiber by fiber perpendicular to the direction of the staple.
Teasing by hand: Hold the staple lengthwise between your hands and pull almost fiber by fiber perpendicular to the direction of the staple.

In my recent spinning project with raw Icelandic wool I combined flicking and hand teasing and spun from what I ended up calling an accordion burrito.

Accidental teasing

A final and sort of accidental way to tease is when you separate undercoat and outercoat with combs. As you doff the outercoat off the comb in a top the undercoat stays in the comb, nicely teased.

After having doffed the long outercoat fibers off the comb I end up with accidentally teased undercoat fibers neatly arranged in the comb.
After having doffed the long outercoat fibers off the comb I end up with accidentally teased undercoat fibers neatly arranged in the comb.

I hope you experiment with teasing if you haven’t already, and enjoy the difference. I will get back to my teasing and a good period drama. To me, teasing will not only result in higher quality rolags, but also a joy in the carding process.

Teased rya locks in the sun (see as in the featured image).
Teased rya locks in the sun (see as in the featured image).

Do you tease your wool in a way I haven’t described here? What are the benefits?

If you have access to any of the breed study webinars I have released you can see how I tease there. And if you are a patron you can have access to all previous breed study webinars in a patron-only video library.

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
  • 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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Dear Fleece

I have been practicing free writing lately and I decided to write this blog post in a flow without overthinking things. It turned into a letter of gratitude to the dear fleece from Iceland I have been working with during the past months.

Dear fleece,

I got you on a lovely October morning. As I opened the parcel that had sailed all the way from Iceland the loveliest smell of lanolin struck my nose like a sweet melody. You had just been shorn off a lamb skipping about in the Icelandic green hills.

I'm listening to my Icelandic wool.
I’m listening to my Icelandic wool.

Lubrication

The lanolin glistened like the Milky Way between your soft fibers. Its presence there to protect the sheep you once grew on, but also serve as a lovely spinning assistant for me as I work with the wool. Moist, flexible lanolin that gives a lightness in the draft and smoothness in the yarn.

A dear fleece on its journey from raw fleece to a softly spun singles yarn.
A dear fleece on its journey from raw fleece to a softly spun singles yarn.

I didn’t even wash you before I started spinning, I wanted the lanolin to be a part of the spinning team – my hands, the spinning wheel and the lanolin all together, listening to the wool to find its best and sweetest yarn. The lanolin works with me to the extent that I hardly need to make any adjustments – my hands just follow the guidance from the lubricated fibers. I am thankful for the lanolin.

I dyed two skeins for colourwork on the sweater I’m knitting. I spun the yarn as it was but separated the white staples to spin into a white yarn.

Passengers

When I explore a new fleece, part of the adventure is to identify the vegetable matter. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a fleece filled with vegetable matter, but there will always be bits and pieces in the fleece, that have traveled between the fibers from the pastures the sheep has grazed. From you fell no hay, no straw. Just a few pieces of unidentifiable plants and some dark brown granules of what I believe is peat. At least it looks a lot like the granules that have fallen out of the Shetland fleeces I have got from Shetland.

All the yarn from my Icelandic fleece in a basket.
27 skeins of worsted weight singles yarn, 766 g rams and 1597 meters. I started with 1200 grams of raw fleece, which gives a yield of 65%. My usual yield from raw fleece to finished yarn lies around 55 %.

Being reminded of the reality the sheep has lived in gives me a sort of grounding in the life it has had so far. A sheep with this low amount of vegetable matter is in my imagination a sheep with lots of space on green hills, grazing in all weathers, protected by a fleece that has developed through centuries to protect a body in just those circumstances of weather, landscape and climate. I am thankful, yes, thankful, for the passengers on the fleece that remind me of the sheep and its life. They bring me closer to the sheep and its reality.

Connection

I wanted to spin you as gently as I could, with as little preparation and alteration as possible. Just a light teasing and a soft twist in a singles yarn. A soft yarn that would show your stars – the baby soft undercoat cloud and the strong and silky outercoat armouring – in a gentle almost-not-even-yarn kind of yarn. Just a sweet puff of my spinning wand, where the colours and quirks were still visible, alive and fresh in the yarn. Yes, I wanted a yarn spun from you to be alive, vibrant with the air of you, dear Fleece. A connection to the source of your modest splendour.

A sweet colour range from my dear fleece.

With my freshly spun yarn, more like raw food than oven baked, I wanted to be able to knit a garment that would be what you, dear Fleece, had been for the sheep. A protection from the weather, streamlined for me just as you were to the grazing fiber source. Close. Safe. Raw. I am thankful for the connection to the source.

Process

Spinning you has been a process. It is of course always a process, but this one has been unique. I have learned so much from you. First and foremost, I have been monogamous with you. With other fleeces I have worked in parallel process, but with you I wanted to keep the freshness of the lanolin and see it fresh all the way through.

Handspun singles yarn of Icelandic wool.
The knitting has begun! Main color in the middle.

I didn’t even pick your staples before I started teasing them. The basket was full of fields of lightly touching staples. Like a flock of sheep, really. Some from the sides, some from the back, the shortest and sweetest from the neck. All connected to the sheep they once served (don’t worry, she will have new staples to protect her). But in this focused process I have been able to be more present, more aware and learn more, deeper. To listen to your sweet whisper, to find what you wanted to become. To find your soul. I am thankful for the process.

Teacher

Second, I have learned how to work with you a my teacher. How to tease your staples as gently as possible and to still be able to create a soft and smooth yarn with your gentle colours still present, each in their own beauty. How to make my grip gentle and trust your guidance in the spinning. To trust that the yarn will be what it will be and that all is as it should be. I even learned to trust my hands enough to change roles – the spinning hand became a fiber hand and the fiber hand a spinning hand. Wasn’t that an adventure? So lovely an adventure that I kept exploring this sweet change of hands. I am thankful for the teacher.

I'm knitting an Icelandic style sweater with my handspun Lopi-style yarn.
Knitting is happening!

So thank you, dear Fleece, for helping me becoming a better spinner. I’m on a knitting journey with the yarn from you now and I promise I will do my very best to make you proud, as a thank you for all your gifts.

In gratitude,

Josefin

Happy spinning!

Resources

For you, dear readers, I have listed some previous post written with this very fleece as an example and exploration:

  • In the post In the grease I go through my processing method for the Icelandic fleece – lightly teasing the raw fleece with a flicker, hand teasing and spinning from the cut ends into a singles yarn that I then back to get a low Lopi-style twist. If you are a patron (or decide to become one) there is a digital postcard video I put together for you where I show you how I prepare and spin this wool into a lopi style yarn like I describe in this post.
  • I explore a spiritual perspective in The gift of Knowledge, inspired by a quote in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s brilliant book Gathering Moss. In this post you can also learn how to make an accordion burrito.
  • A sore thumb make me switch hands to be able to keep spinning without pain. As it turns out, it was a brilliant idea that I learned a lot from.
  • In Hands-on five-day challenge I invite you to just that. Access the challenge for free here.

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
  • 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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Hands-on five-day challenge

Today I give you the Hands-on five-day challenge! If you accept the challenge you will be able to explore the roles of your hands in spinning by switching them. You will give yourself the opportunity to explore and get a deeper understanding of both your hands as spinning hand and as fiber hand.

Enroll in the free Hands-on five-day challenge here

In last week’s blog post I switched hands in wheel spinning and spent a lot of time reflecting over the roles of the hands as spinning hands and fiber hands and what happened when I switched. I needed to switch due to a sore thumb in this case. But in all my spindle spinning classes I encourage my students to switch hands for reasons of ergonomics. Either way, switching hands made me reflect and look at my hand roles in a new light. It also gave me a new understanding of what they actually do and potentially can do.

Switching hand roles can give you a deeper understanding of what the spinning hand and fiber hand actually do.

A spark

I was quite caught up in this switching hands adventure. To get an understanding of other spinners’ experiences I wrote a short post in a spinning forum about my new adventure and asked if the members switch hands in their spinning. I got a lot of interesting responses – some did switch regularly, some found it scary but wanted to try and some dismissed the idea. It was one response in particular though, that caught my interest and sparked this whole challenge. J replied and wrote about how she switched. She ended her reply with: “Great challenge!”. And then I realized that I should indeed turn it into a challenge. So I did.

Many of you, over 700 people, have taken my previous challenge, Fleece through the senses and there are over 1000 (!) comments in the challenge. This collection of comments, reflections and insights is so valuable. To me as a course creator and spinning teacher, but especially for us all as spinners and spinning students. There are so many things we can learn from each other!

Hands-on five-day challenge

So, this is how it works: This is a practical challenge where you will get five text lessons over five days. Each lessons has a theme where I encourage you to explore the roles of your hands by switching them. In each lesson you will also get a practice to work with. The challenge is in written English but if you feel more comfortable writing your comments in another language you are welcome to do so.

The purpose of the course is for you to explore the roles of the hands in spinning. The goal is to to get a deeper understanding of both your hands as spinning hand and fiber hand.

A glimpse of the Hands-on five-day challenge (this is a screen shot and not clickable)

Each day of the challenge the lesson will be available at the course page at midnight UTC. If you enroll in the course after that you will get access to the lesson the next day. 15 hours after the lesson has become available you will get an email about it. You are free to work with the lesson whenever you like and for as long as you like.

You can take this challenge at any spinning level. It might even be more challenging for an experienced spinner than for a beginner. To take part in the challenge you will need a spinning tool of your choice – spindles, spinning wheel or e-spinner – and prepared fiber anyway you like it. If you work with spindles it may be a good idea to work with two spindles of the same kind. You will need around 15–30 minutes a day to work with it. You also need pen and paper to take notes of your findings.

A student teacher

This challenge came about through my own learning process as a spinning student. Throughout the challenge I give examples of how I have practiced and learned from my hand switching experiments.

I made a preview release this week for my patrons. One of the first patrons to accept and enroll in the challenge was a bit hesitant to be the first to comment on Day 1 of the challenge, but she did after a while. When she wrote her comment I realized that she was totally right and I enrolled in the challenge myself and added my reflections in the comments. Thank you G for pointing this out to me. You will not be the first to comment now!

Thank you J for lighting the spark for the Hands-on challenge!

Happy switching!

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
  • 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

A sore thumb

This week a journal entry, writer’s block, migraine and a sore thumb led me to bold decisions, new perspectives and beautiful insights.

A sore thumb

I have been spinning my Icelandic fleece quite frequently lately. The other day I felt some soreness in my left thumb. Minuscule, really. A flap of skin was loose on my finger print and I realized that to keep spinning that wool – in the grease, I might add – while the skin was sore and reddened wouldn’t be the best idea. I got a bit sad. After all, I had worked out a process for this wool that worked very well and I had reached a soft flow in my spinning. A migraine restricted most other activities than slow and mindful crafting for the next few days.

Writer’s block

At the same time I was looking for something to write for this week’s blog post. I usually work with a blog post during most days of the week. On Saturday morning I finally publish it. A void crystallizes itself and on some level I miss what I have just written, just as I miss a spinning project when the basket is empty. The process I have been working on and growing in suddenly becomes a product with the press of a button.

Sans a lot

My hands and my mind still need to write, but it does take some effort and recharging to come up with an idea for a new post. So, I was sans spinning and sans blog idea. Also sans capacity to do much else than activities that didn’t require moving my head.

Morning journaling is a treasured moment for me.

I do free write every morning in my dawn journal and exercise my writing muscles daily. The other day I was scribbling away as the day broke, about crafting and creativity. I reflected over how creativity creates more creativity as I am in the moment, calming bouncy ideas that want my attention, making them less elusive and more mellow. How I am in the creating and the creating is in me.

Enter: Idea (with tart tone)

Half an hour or so later an idea knocked gingerly on the inside of my skull, hoping to get out in the air. It said (with a slightly tart tone, I might add): “Why don’t you change hands? Like you always tell your students to do? That way you get to spin without making the sore thumb worse and you will have something to blog about.” Well, that’s a thought. It will also enable me to spin through the migraine and experience what I torment my students with when I ask them to change hands. The idea was just the kind of idea that I had been writing about that same morning, an idea that had matured in my mind through spinning.

This is actually my favourite kind of blog writing process. I spin a bit, get an idea during the spinning process and write it down. As the idea gets clad in linguistic splendour – preferably with sparkles – I understand more and try my new baby reflection at the wheel or spindle. I realize more and need to put that into writing too. The process of theory and practice in spinning is something I treasure.

Changing hands for ergonomics

When it comes to spindles – supported, suspended, floor supported and in-hand – I have no problem changing hands. I always choose the hand that is most effective for the spinning direction I have chosen (read about spinning direction and ergonomics here and watch a free webinar in spindle spinning here). Ever since I realized its implications for spinning I have practiced this and feel rich with the opportunities it gives me.

This summer I practiced changing hands when I spun flax on my spinning wheel with a makeshift parasol stand floor distaff that I placed alternately to the left and right of me for a more ergonomic and balanced working position. All this has been first and foremost to work with my body and avoid strain in hands, arms and shoulders. I have also raved to my students about the benefits of understanding the work of both hands through both hands. But when it comes to my own default wheel spinning I have never seen any ergonomic benefit of changing hands and therefore never practiced it. Until now.

Hand habits

So what do the hands really do? Well, the two hands have two primary tasks in spinning:

  • One hand, the spindle hand or spinning hand in spindle spinning or the front hand or spinning hand in wheel spinning, controls the spinning. This hand is closest to the drafting triangle and the point of twist insertion, where fibers become yarn. This hand is at the center of the action, where the actual spinning occurs.
  • The other hand, the fiber hand in spindle spinning or back hand or fiber hand in wheel spinning, controls the fiber. This hand holds the fiber and makes sure the right amount of fiber feeds along to the spinning hand without holding the fiber too loosely or too tightly.

In my experience most focus is on the spinning hand, the hand that controls the fiber. The fiber hand just follows along and is in my experience not often debated. It is when we change hands that we realize that the fiber hand has an equally important task. So, to a student who says they are verrry right or left handed and couldn’t possibly change hands I say: Deal with it. Or something a lot nicer. My point is, both hands have important tasks that require fine motor movements. Hand dominance has nothing to do with it.

A rocky boat

In changing hands I will rock the boat and sail out on deep waters. But in the end I will get to the other shore. As I fumblingly place the fiber in the left hand and prepare my right hand for spinning for the first time it feels awkward and clumsy. And, frankly, quite intimidating.

My brain knows what should happen, but sort of doesn’t. Come to think of it, it’s like a migraine aura. I have my field of view in front of me but I can’t make out what it is I see. When I get the blurred vision in an aura I try to move my head around to get access to the whole field of view, at least enough to be able to email my boss and call in sick. I find a new perspective, or, rather, perspectives, that allow me to understand the world from my current reality. I need to find clues in my new perspective to understand what my hands need to do with their new roles.

My hands have no clue what to do but sort of do. The knowledge is there, but integrated in the wrong hand. A link is missing and I need to take leadership of the search party. The new roles for my hands is uncomfortable, but that’s ok. Sometimes we need discomfort to understand the comfort. And an understanding of other people in discomfort for that matter.

Frustration

So, despite the discomfort I stick to my plan and move on. My movements are fumbly and my hands unused to the motions and decisions of their new roles. This is where I start doubting myself. How do I not know this? How come my hands feel absolutely outlandish?

The function as spinning hand and fiber hand is in both hands if we will let it.

This feeling is something I deal a lot with with my students. Most of them are experienced students that get very frustrated at not knowing what to do when presented with a new tool. Experiencing this sensation myself is truly valuable and I’m grateful for the opportunity. And a bit frustrated. Or possibly a lot.

Awakening

As I practice I understand my hands’ new roles better and better. Placing my left hand role in the right hand forces me to have a conversation between my hands via my brain. I need to analyze the motions and challenges of the right hand through my left hand and digest it in my head.

  • The fibers are stuck in the preparation or coming completely loose. How would my regular hand hold and manage the fiber?
  • I’m clenching my fiber hand in my lap. How does it feel with my regular hand?
  • I’m pinching the thumb of my new front hand. What do I need to change to loosen the grip, and without loosing the technique?
  • The yarn gets too bulky or too fine. How do I find that “just right” sensation I always have in my regular hand?
I’m making progress and have finished a dozen skeins of which half are spun with my awkward hands. But they are not so awkward anymore and I can’t tell the difference between the skeins.

Asking questions like these sharpens my senses and my interpretation of the components in the spinning process. I get to discover the spinning again and listen to the wool, through fresh hands. First-hand (pun vert much intended) I get to see how a new drafting hand and a new fiber hand develop, learn and flourish. Though my wobbly hands I get to understand the spinning process more fully, from a wider perspective. I feel very grateful for the experience.

Choosing the challenge

During this whole week I have worked with my fresh hands. My sore thumb has healed. I can go back to my regular hands if I want to. However, I also have the opportunity to change hands whenever I want, work with and through the discomfort. I can choose to keep challenging myself by keeping this new skill alive, feeding my fresh and sharp perspective of spinning and a humble view of the tasks of spinning hand and fiber hand.

A lopi yarn swatch is finished and I can’t wait to start knitting.

Have you tried changing hands with any spinning tool? And have you stayed with it, exercising both hands in both roles? You are welcome to share in the comments.

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
  • 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

The gift of knowledge

In earlier posts I have written a lot about the knowledge in the hands, muscle memory, the power of slowness and learning through experience. Today I explore spinning and the learning process in spinning in a spiritual perspective. While reflecting over the gift of knowledge I dig into the why of spinning.

During the autumn I have been reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beautiful books Braiding Sweetgrass and Gathering moss. She is a professor of botany and blends her scientific knowledge seamlessly with her indigenous heritage in the Potawatomi Nation. I have had to stop reading several time to reflect over the spiritual message of the book and how I can find a deeper spiritual meaning in my spinning.

Gathering moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer is my morning read at the moment.
Gathering moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer is my morning read at the moment.

The gift of knowledge

I read and journal early in the morning in blissful solitude, when body and mind are sprouting fresh out from the stagnant night. This is my time and space dedicated to reflection and becoming a better person in the world.

Robin Wall Kimmerer writes:

“In traditional indigenous communities, learning takes a form very different from that of the American public education system. Children learn by watching, by listening and by experience. They are expected to learn from all members of the community, human and non-human. To ask a direct question is often considered rude. Knowledge cannot be taken; it must instead be given. Knowledge is bestowed by a teacher only when the student is ready to receive it. Much learning takes place by patient observation, discerning pattern and its meaning by experience. It is understood that there are many versions of truth, and that each reality may be true for each teller. It’s important to understand the perspective of each source of knowledge.”

Gathering moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer, p. 82

I have been thinking about this quote a lot this morning and how I can apply the gift of knowledge – knowledge as a gift to be given when I’m ready to receive it – to spinning. Every time I spin I do my best to listen to the wool and allow it to be my teacher. As I teach I encourage my students to listen patiently to the wool. But the notion of knowledge being given when I as a student am ready gives even more depth to this process. The notion of knowledge as a gift is like a gift in itself, wrapped in a soft pink silk ribbon.

A conversation with the wool

As I work my way through the wool and through the stages of wool processing there is a conversation going on. My hands explore and get feedback from the wool. Reflecting over the quote above I realize that I don’t ask the direct questions, because I know the answer won’t help me. I need to be ready to receive the the answer. The time it takes to get ready may include investigation, exploration, experimentation and patient listening.

I'm listening to my Icelandic wool.
I’m listening to my Icelandic wool.

I learn by experience over and over again as the wool goes through my hands and my mind. The wool replies in my hands with clues of elasticity, give, length, crimp, friction. Small clues that build up to an understanding of the wool when I am ready to receive it. If I’m not ready to receive the understanding I will make mistakes. Which, ironically, do help me understand, but in a more brutal way.

The clues along the road will eventually help me understand the wool and what I need to do. I also believe that the time it takes to figure out what the clues tell me will give me the knowledge. It may also include silently being with the wool, asking for nothing in return. The time I spend with the wool, the time I give the wool, will allow me to reflect and understand what it is I experience.

Example: Icelandic Lopi style yarn

By patiently working with the sweet raw staples of Icelandic wool I get ready to receive new knowledge about how to prepare them for a singles Lopi style yarn.

So how do I get ready to receive the knowledge by my teacher, the wool? To illustrate my thoughts on this I will use my current spinning project as an example. I’m spinning Icelandic wool in the grease from the lock and my example regards the processing of the wool before spinning.

  • When I first met this fleece I wanted to tease the wool with my hands only. But since the tips were a bit stiffened by the lanolin I abandoned that idea. The fibers in the tip didn’t separate enough for a comfortable spin.
  • Next I tried teasing with a flicker. Tip end and cut end. This was a better approach. The teased staples were easier to work with and I could spin a more even yarn.
  • The flicked staples were still worked one by one, though. I wanted to find a way to bundle them together and spin as a mass. From previous experience I knew that flicked locks don’t always separate as evenly as a carded or combed preparation and tend to get dense. I tried hand teasing the staples sideways after the flicking and could arrange the flicked and hand teased staples better as a bundle. It was also more open than separate flicked staples. The sideways hand teasing reduced some of the denseness. It was still a little awkward, though. The drafting got interrupted by tangles and disarrayed and escaping fibers.
  • I worked this way for one or two skeins. Then, out of no special reason at all, I spread each staple in its sideway hand teased state, like an accordion. I layered the accordioned teasings (wow, that’s a new word invention, but I hope you get what I’m after) on top of each other, cut end on top of cut end, tip end on top of tip end. When I had layered an appropriate amount of teasings I rolled the whole accordion pile into a loose burrito bundle and spun from the corner of the cut ends. This works very well. I get an evenly spun yarn that drafts easily over the whole bundle.
First I tease each staple separately with a flicker and then I hand tease it sideways.

The accordion burrito preparation is how I work at the moment. I have spun two or three skeins this way and it is working out smoothly. But who knows, I may find yet another answer as I investigate and am ready to receive new knowledge.

Accordion burrito in the making; I spread the flicked and hand teased staple sideways like an accordion and lay a few on top of each other, cut end to the left, tip end to the right. I roll the layered accordion pile into a burrito and spin from the corner of the tip ends.

If and when that happens I will work with the new knowledge and develop my technique accordingly. Step by step I get ready to receive new knowledge. The way I prepare this wool now at this moment was not available to me when I started. I wasn’t ready to receive and understand it.

Quick fix or receiving the knowledge?

I have written quite an extensive post so far. Throughout the post I have shared clues in the wool through my experience of it. With time, exploration, experimentation, listening and reflecting I have gained, earned, become ready to receive knowledge about how the wool behaves. From that knowledge I have spun a yarn in a certain way, with certain tools and techniques. I could go straight to this paragraph and spin the yarn from a “recipe” created from the bullet list above. But the understanding would be lost. I wouldn’t be ready to receive the knowledge without the time spent observing and experiencing the wool. As I read the bullet list my hands remember how each step felt and the time it took to take the next. Time is my friend here, slow is a superpower. Connecting this approach to a spiritual level makes my heart tingle.

Perspectives

I come back to the same important factors in understanding the wool I work with – the muscle memory, learning by experience, learning by mistakes and the time I spend with the wool. These are all part of my understanding of the wool. In a way similar to how Robin Wall Kimmerer adds the best parts of western science to her indigenous knowledge to understand plants around her I do my best to understand spinning through both physical, experiential, temporal and spiritual perspectives. They may all lead to the same result, the perspectives are just different.

Through different perspectives I get to know the wool. A spiritual perspective adds a new dimension to my understanding of the wool and the process.
Through different perspectives I get to know the wool. A spiritual perspective adds a new dimension to my understanding of the wool and the process.

I may understand these perspectives on different levels and in different contexts. The combination of them can give me a greater depth of spinning. I find a spiritual perspective to be an important piece that adds new dimensions to my perception of the wool. I can rest in the notion that by humbly and respectfully investigating, listening, exploring and experimenting with the wool I will understand more as I am ready to receive the gift of knowledge.

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 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
  • 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

Gunvor’s Sirwal pants

And they are done. My largest spindle spun project so far, the Sirwal snow shoveling pants that used to be common in the Moroccan High Atlas Mountains. I call them Gunvor’s Sirwal pants from the sheep that gave me the wool. Since my 16-year-old has dibs on snow shoveling for pocket money I may use the pants for outdoor yoga and for walking down to the lake for my daily bath.

A while ago I bought Irene Waggener’s beautiful book Keepers of the sheep and reviewed it on the blog. One of the most striking patterns was the Sirwal pants, a pair of black and white striped pants that the shepherds used to knit while herding the sheep.

A patternless pattern

In the book Irene describes her first meeting with the pants in a museum, how she learned to knit them from her host Muah n’Aït Tabatoot’s demonstration. Irene has in turn written down the oral description and demonstration for the book. As all of the projects in the book the pattern is based on working with what you have in the form of wool, yarn, needles and body size rather than a detailed knitting instruction. I really liked the idea and think it would be a good challenge for me.

  • Keepers of the sheep – knitting Morocco's High Atlas and beyond, by Irene Waggener with Muah Ahansali, Hussein Mardi, Muah n'Ait Tabatoot and Noura Eddylymy. Photo published with permission from the author.
    Keepers of the sheep – knitting Morocco’s High Atlas and beyond, by Irene Waggener with Muah Ahansali, Hussein Mardi, Muah n’Ait Tabatoot and Noura Eddylymy. Photo published with permission from the author.
  • Sirwal pants in Keepers of the sheep. Photo published with permission from the author.
    I’m fascinated by the Sirwal pants and their dazzling lightning bolts up the sides of the legs. Photo published with permission from the author.

The challenge of keeping it simple

In the book Irene describes how Muah’s wife Nejma spun and plied the yarn on a floor supported spindle, wound it into a ball and handed it straight over to Muah for knitting. I wanted to make my own pair of Sirwal pants as close to the original as possible. So, a spindle spun yarn. I didn’t have a floor supported spindle of the kind Nejma used, but I do have Navajo style floor supported spindles so I used one of them. I also decided not to soak the yarn and set the twist after plying, to stay as close to the High Atlas way as I could.

To ply the Gunvor Sirwal single I wind it into a ball and ply from the outer and inner end of the center pull ball. I skip the soaking and setting twist and knit as soon as I have wound the plied yarn into a ball (the skeining detour is just to keep track of the meterage).

“So, the yarn is not soaked and the twist has not been set?” you may say. That’s right. “But soaking the yarn will allow it to bloom into its final shape! And setting the twist will even out the twist over the length of the yarn!” you may continue. That is true. This will probably not happen with my pants. Something else probably will, though. I don’t know what, but if and when it does, all is as it should be. Instead of the finished yarn I got the loveliest smell during knitting and the softest hands. That counts for something too.

Gunvor the Gestrike sheep

Gunvor the Gestrike ewe who was my longitudinal fleece study sheep
Gunvor the Gestrike ewe who was my longitudinal fleece study sheep.

I used two fleeces of Gestrike wool, the first and second shearing of the Gestrike ewe Gunvor. She was the subject of my longitudinal study I wrote about in May 2021. She was a beautiful white sheep with large black spots, perfect for the striped Sirwal pants.

Locks from the first (left) and second (right) shearing of Gunvor the Gestrike sheep. Long and strong outercoat fibers, soft and airy undercoat fibers and some kemp.

Gestrike wool has both long and strong outercoat fibers, soft and airy undercoat and some kemp. This results in a strong and warm yarn, perfect for my Sirwal pants.

Gunvor’s first (left) and second (right) fleeces. Note the difference in colour and the different white to black ratio.

A life through stripes

The fleece of Gestrike sheep can lighten with age and Gunvor’s fleece turned out to have that particular characteristic. I took advantage of this feature and used the blackest black from the first shearing at the bottom of the legs and continuted with the lighter shades as I worked my way up the legs. I like how you can see Gunvor’s life through the stripes.

The yarn from the first fleece is placed from the ankles to the thighs and the second from the thighs up. Gunvor’s black spots had lightened at the time of the second shearing. This is not my usual outdoor yoga spot, but it was the only sunny spot around at the time. Photo by Dan Waltin

The quality of the wool was different between the shearings too. The first shearing was shinier and a bit finer while the second shearing was a bit shorter and airier. I’m not sure it’s visible in the pants, though. The second shearing was a lot higher in lanolin. As I calculated the yield from the two fleeces I was amazed by the difference. From the raw fleece I got a yarn yield of 59 per cent from the first shearing and 38 per cent from the second. The amount of lanolin should be an important clue to this difference. Perhaps the second shearing also contained more short fibers and/or kemp than the second, that stayed in the combs when I teased the wool.

You can read more about shearing and lanolin content through the seasons in the post Shearing Day.

Bulky

Another challenge was the yarn. The tradition calls for a super bulky yarn, which is far from my light fingering weight default thickness. But a challenge is a challenge and I took it by the horns. I managed to spin the bulkiest singles I have ever spun. Add plying to that and I got myself a super bulky woolen spun yarn from hand carded rolags.

Lovely longdraws on my floor spindle.

At first I tried to card the wool without teasing the wool first, again in an effort to stay as close to the High Atlas way as possible. But the kemp in the wool made the yarn very scratchy. By teasing the wool with combs I got rid of a lot of the kemp and I decided to keep the teasing.

Gunvor Sirwal yarn. 6 wraps per inch, a super bulky yarn. Teased with combs, hand carded into rolags. Woolen spun on a Navajo style floor supported spindle. Plied both on a spinning wheel and on a floor spindle.

When the pants were finished I had used 26 balls of yarn. 1200 grams, 717 meters from the two fleeces, between 500 and 700 meters per kilo with an average grist of 590 meters per kilo. You can read more about how I spun this yarn in my blog post bulky.

If you are a patron (or become one) you may get access to a Patreon postcard video I made in November, where I demonstrate how I spin the super bulky yarn.

Knitting

I started knitting as soon as I had the first ball of handspun yarn in my hand. This is how I continued with the whole project – spin a ball and knit it. A yarn of this weight doesn’t last very long, though. At the bottom of the legs one skein lasted about one stripe and at the hips around eight rounds.

Spin a ball, knit a stripe, hoping the two fleeces would be enough for the whole project.

Knitting the Gunvor Sirwal pants was quite strenuous. The bulky yarn and the large needles (5.5 mm) require some work. Add to that the tight twist and the tight gauge and, as I joined the legs in the crotch, quite some weight in my lap to manage. The finished pants weigh around one kilo.

One kilo of pants takes a lo-ho-hot of time to dry. 8-ply rope for the shoulder straps.

Despite the heavy knitting it was lovely to work with the yarn. I love the roundedness of the yarn and the strong character it has. It takes its place in the world and doesn’t apologize for its existence. I got all giggly by the sheepy smell from the unwashedness of the pants in progress. As I knit I experienced Gunvor’s life, from the blackest of the black lamb locks at the shins to the more mature depth in the lead grey in hip height.

Outdoor yoga and cold baths

If you have been following me for a while you may know that I take baths in the lake every day and that I sometimes practice yoga outdoors. Gunvor’s Sirwal pants are perfect for both outdoor yoga and walking down to the lake on the coldest days.

A walk to the bath

Gunvor’s Sirwal pants are warm, reasonably windproof, and easy to put on after a cold bath, which is important since my fingers are stiff from the cold and I need to get warm fast. Yesterday afternoon I went down to the lake with an axe and cleaned up the edges of the hole in the ice. We’re five ladies in the cold bath group and they have all been cheering me on during the making of the pants.

  • A lovely morning bath!
Warm, sturdy, windproof and easy to get in and out of. Gunvor’s Sirwal pants are perfect for cold baths. Photos by Isak Waltin (left and middle) and Pernilla Pernsjö (right).

An outdoor yoga studio

Practicing yoga outdoors is not a problem as long as you have clothing that suits the weather. Down to -2°C is ok with one or two layers of wool tights or sweat pants. I can even practice with bare feet on my cork mat at this temperature. With lower temperatures staying warm easily gets too chunky which makes it difficult to do the postures comfortably.

My terrace yoga studio with extra air conditioning.

Gunvor’s Sirwal pants are perfect, though, even for temperatures below -2°C. I took the pictures above at -6°C and it wasn’t too cold. With the suspenders they stay up without getting too tight around the waist.

I practice yoga asana every day, and sometimes outdoors on our terrace. I just love having all the fresh air to myself. As I usually do my outdoor yoga at around 8 p.m. it’s dark, as dark it gets in a city. I get to look up at the sky and the waving pine branches above. It gives the practice an extra dimension of space that I don’t want to be without.

Gunvor’s Sirwal superhero pants, ready for your next wooly adventure.

Some people say the pants look a bit like Obelix’s blue and white striped pants, some say they look like Findus the cat’s green striped suspender pants. They remind me of swimsuits from over a century ago, which is quite suitable since I wear them in a bathing context. But most of all they make me think of superhero pants with their bold stripes and dazzling lightning bolts up the sides. Don’t we all wish to be just a little superhero-y every now and then?

Thank you Irene for making the pattern accessible and Muah for teaching Irene. Thank you Gunvor for the loveliest wool. I have learned a lot from this project.

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
  • 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

2021 wrapped up

Another year has passed, filled with spinning memories, like sweets in a bowl. Today I share my favourite wool moments from this year. This is 2021 wrapped up.

As I have looked through my posts in preparation for this wrapping up of the year I have tried to cluster the posts. I have found a few different perspectives that I can sort the posts into. So if you are in a certain mood you can skip to that particular area below.

Meditate

If you are in an artistic mood perhaps you are more inclined to read posts that are written in a more reflective and poetic style.

First comes a carefully worded ode to a small ziplock bag of 55 grams of wool. Actually an exercise from Ursula K Le Guin’s brilliant book on writing, Steering the craft. Do read the piece aloud to discover the rhythm in some of the passages.

  • Little ball of yarn
  • The comfort of sleeping under a dear blanket in the cold winter.
    The comfort of sleeping under a dear blanket in the cold winter.
  • 55 grams of dalapäls wool in a birch root basket from the end of the 19th century.
    55 grams of dalapäls wool in a birch root basket from the end of the 19th century.

In Dear Blanket I address one of the handspun knitted items that I use the most, a Shetland hap Dan and I snuggle under in front of snacks and Netflix every evening. In the same spirit I reflect on a Little ball of yarn.

I also created a more hands-on meditation in the video I call A spinning meditation, recorded in the northernmost part of Swedish Lappland, in the Swedish part of Sápmi. I invite you to spin along with me and feel your way through the spinning.

Reflect

Perhaps you are feeling more like reflecting over wool, spinning and the process you might be leaning more towards in-depth reflections. Here are some suggestions:

In The wool is my teacher I look at the wool in my hands as my most important teacher. If I listen close enough the wool will tell me what it’s all about. When the wool go through my hands time and again in the process from fleece to textile they gather knowledge. In The memory in the hands I reflect over this. And if I for some reason don’t listen to the wool or my experience I will make mistakes. I will also learn from them. In Embrace your mistakes I share some of the mistakes I have embraced over the years.

  • Spinning on a spindle gives me time to understand what is happening.
    I choose simple spinning tools and invest in my quality bank.
  • The comfort of nalbinding.
    The comfort of nalbinding.
  • Embrace your mistakes

Through all that happens in the outer and inner world, wool is always there, anchoring me in the moment, opening the door to creativity. I remind myself of this in The comfort of wool. I think this is true for many spinners. In Course exchange I write about teaching new spinners and wishing they get as much out of wool and spinning

Explore

Sometimes I just want to explore a new fleece or a technique, with curiosity and an open mind. Judging from the posts in this section I have done that a lot this year. Try these:

In A coloured fleece I dive deep into the different shades of brown in a variegated brown Värmland fleece. I spin a super bulky Gestrike yarn on a floor supported spindle in Bulky. In Changing hands I talk about why I always teach my spindle spinning students to learn how to spin with both hands as spindle hands.

  • The Gestrike sheep Gunvor's lamb's fleece is slowly turning into chunky skeins of super bulky yarn.
    The Gestrike sheep Gunvor’s lamb’s fleece is slowly turning into chunky skeins of super bulky yarn.
  • Gestrike wool
  • Åsen wool

A couple of years ago I started a breed study series of the wool of Swedish sheep breeds from a spinner’s perspective. Most of these breed studies have been both a blog post and a live webinar. This year I had time for two breed studies – Gestrike wool and Åsen wool. If you registered for the webinars back then you still have access to the replays. During the year I have also had time to explore fleeces from these breeds further, in Nalbinding Åsen mittens and a Gestrike wool Longitudinal study.

Finally, in Break the rules I challenge the rules I have learned about spinning and do whatever I want. And it works!

Experiment

Sometimes I throw myself out into the wild and experiment with something that has proven to be a challenge or a technique that I don’t usually work with. I experiment with different solutions and learn a lot from the experiment. Perhaps you will be inspired to experiment too. Here are some of my recent concoctions:

Pick a fleece full of Vegetable matter and experiment with different ways to remove as much of the vegetable matter as possible. Imagine that same fleece, a rough fleece with kemp. Imagine smooth recycled sari silk. Put them together and read about it in Opposites attract.

  • Opposites attract
  • In the grease
  • Two skeins, one spun clockwise with my right hand as spindle hand, one spun counter-clockwise with my left hand as spindle hand. By changing hands I have learned about what the hands do and what they know.
    Fulling singles

I spin a newly shorn Icelandic lamb’s fleece from Iceland In the grease and find joy in the joy that the raw feeling and smell of fresh lanolin gives me. In Fulling singles I am determined to knit with singles yarns and full them to make sure the fabric doesn’t twist and turn.

Experience

In this last section I have gathered posts that have required or given me experience. Perhaps you find inspiration by reading these:

On a lovely Shearing day in October I got to be part of the helper team when Claudia’s Gestrike sheep were shorn by a professional shearer. And I got to bring the fleece of Elsa home on the bus. In Fleece happens I describe my process from when a fleece happens to come to me (like Elsa’s) to when I store it, via note taking, sorting, washing, drying, picking and more. A way to categorize wool in Sweden is by wool type. I walk you through the different wool (or staple) types and how they work. Wool combs describes what properties I think are important when I look at wool combs.

  • The sheep are in the pen, reluctantly ready for shearing day.
    The sheep are in the pen, reluctantly ready for shearing day.
  • Knit (spin) Sweden is in your online bookstore now!
    Knit (spin) Sweden!
  • Påsöm embroidered yoga mat

Påsöm embroidery is not about spinning at all, but still textile techniques. This embroidery technique and pattern is unique to the small village of Dala-Floda in County Dalarna in Sweden. Mending apparatus also has nothing to do with spinning, but is important for if and when your garments tear.

Books! Finally Sara Wolf’s book was released and I am a co-author. Read about Knit (spin) Sweden! and enjoy. The book is sold out and it will hopefully be reprinted. In a Book review I talk about Irene Waggener’s book Keepers of the sheep. Do read it!

Finally, in A pattern process I walk you through the agony and hair tearing as I go through the process of designing and construct a knitting pattern for publishing. You will see the root of this agony soon!

Do you have a favourite?

Happy new spinning year!

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
  • 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

Midwinter

Another year has gone by and a couple of days ago it was December solstice again. In my part of the world this means very few hours of daylight. During midwinter I do my best to find my inner light.

If you are on my email list you will have received a solstice email. I don’t send emails very often outside of course launches and webinars, but I try to acknowledge solstices and equinoxes. After all, regardless of any religion or seasonal tradition, these events happen all over the world and remind us that we are all in this together.

Midwinter

During the past month or so I have had my winter photo goggles on, looking for light, motif and weather for a December solstice photo for you. I took one on a frosty day just in case we wouldn’t have any more cold days. I ended up using the featured photo with the mittens, though, so I give my spare photo to you now instead.

Mossbelupen and frostnupen. Two of my favourite words in one picture. And handspun yarn in the midwinter sun.

With the picture come two of my favourite Swedish words. Mossbelupen and frostnupen. The grammatical forms are very old and seldom appear in colloquial language, but fit very well in a more poetic setting. Mossbelupen means “moss covered”. Frostnupen means “frost pinched”. The suffixes -belupen and -nupen exist only in these compounds. My heart tingles with joy and excitement by the fact that these simple but wondrous phenomena have at one time been considered important enough to have their own word. So here it is in one picture – the rock behind our house, mossbelupen and the moss atop it frostnupen. A picture like that deserves the presence of a ball of handspun yarn, don’t you think?

Holiday

It’s been a busy autumn. I just submitted my final exam for an online course in Comparative indigenous studies at Umeå University. So interesting and important. I’m quite exhausted now, though, yet a little wiser. I just finished my last day at work before a 2.5 week holiday. I will spend it with my family, wool, daily dips in the lake and any daylight I can catch.

December solstice at noon. The sun doesn’t get any higher than this in Stockholm this day. But she is coming back to us soon. Meanwhile I do my best to find an inner light to brighten midwinter days.

I came across a beautiful article about how we can acknowledge solstice day by going inward, reflecting on this day and the days leading up to it and practicing self care. The article provides a list of ways to spend solstice day. One of my favourite suggestions from the list is to channel my creative energy through crafts. Perhaps you find something that suits you even on the days following solstice day. I spent a few minutes of this day at noon in the lake, feeling the elements embrace me and the pale midwinter sun warm in my face.

I wish you all peace, health and light.

P.S. If you have some time over during the holidays or just want to sneak out from family and friends for a while I can highly recommend my free five-day challenge Fleece through the senses that I published in August 2020. The challenge is nothing special, you do all the work while I ask a few questions. The lovely thing about this challenge, though, is the community in it. Over 700 people have taken on the challenge and there are over 500 comments in the comments sections of the challenge (with replies from me). This means that there is a heap of things to learn from fellow students. So if you haven’t taken the challenge: Do it! And if you have: Do it again! You have probably learned a thing or two since the first time and you will probably understand your wool journey with even more depth a second time. Take part in your fellow spinners’ wisdom and contribute with your own.

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
  • 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

Opposites attract

It happened again. A baby idea came and made up its mind not to leave me alone until I had listened to it. The baby idea told me to combine rustic gute fleece with recycled sari silk with the motivation that opposites attract. I listened and I’m glad I did.

A while ago I bought a gute fleece. Gute sheep have a very rustic wool that often has a coarse appearance. You can read more about gute wool here. This one was quite unusual, though, with its very soft undercoat and the outercoat playing only a minor part. Still, as with gute in general, the fleece has kemp.

Kemp

Kemp is fibers that have a dominant core with air-filled cells that make the fibers brittle. They are coarse and don’t conform themself with the rest of the fibers, instead they point quirkily in all directions. The upside with kemp, though, is that they fall out of the wool eventually and leave air pockets. And in yarn, air means warmth.

A lovely and in my experience quite rare gute fleece with lots of very fine undercoat, a few strands of outercoat and some kemp. The kemp keeps the staples open and light.

A fulling project

Kemp also gives a rustic look to a fabric. I like a fulled fabric with quirky kemp in it. My original plan for this fleece was to spin a 2-ply yarn to weave and full in a fulling mill. The combination of lots of undercoat with quite small amount of outercoat and kemp makes this a perfect candidate. The undercoat has excellent felting properties, the outercoat binds the fibers together and makes the fabric stronger and the kemp adds an interesting design element while at the same time bringing warmth to the fabric as it falls out and leaves air pockets.

Enter Sari silk

And so the baby idea came to me. What would happen if I blended the rustic gute wool with recycled sari silk? Would the very different fibers complement each other or would they just look odd? If so, would that be a bad thing?

I have blended recycled sari silk with wool before, in my sweater designs Margau beta and Selma Margau (available as a pattern in Spin-Off magazine). The fleeces have been finer and the results scrumptious. I decided to give my baby idea the benefit of the doubt and make a test skein and fulled swatches.

Teasing

So, first of all I teased the wool. I chose to tease with my combing station, where I could at the same time blend the sari silk with the wool. I charge the stationary comb with the (picked) gute staples. For the purpose of teasing I don’t care about the direction of the staples. I also add tufts of sari silk. To keep a reasonably even wool to silk ratio I charge every combload with 8 staple length tufts of sari silk.

As I doff the roving off the stationary comb a lot of the sari silk and the kemp stays in the comb. I try to fiddle the silk out.

I do about four passes in the combing station to get an even roving. There is one tricky thing here, though. As I doff the wool off the combs I get the longer lengths first, then shorter and shorter. Since both the sari silk and the kemp is very short, around one inch, a lot of it stays in the stationary comb. I try to fiddle the sari silk out to the best of my ability. I will try flicking the cut ends of the gute staples before teasing next time to get more kemp out.

You can see how I tease wool, blend it with sari silk and card rolags in this video.

Carding

As I card luscious rolags, the sari silk blends beautifully into the gute wool, like sparkling stars on a foggy night. Unexpected but mesmerizing.

The fine recycled sari silk blends beautifully with the rustic gute wool.

This wool is just dreamy to work with. Very light and airy with a lovely meringue-y resistance to it. The rolags shape themselves like they were born to do just that. If I lean in I hear them singing sweet songs of yummy longdraws. My heart joins in in the chorus.

The longdraws from heaven

Yes, these newborn rolag babies need and deserve a wicked longdraw. As it turns out, the rolags work that out too, I just treadle along and listen to the wool. I allow it to decide how thick it wants to be. It settles for a quite fine thickness that after plying and washing blooms out into a sport weight yarn.

Spinning English longdraws with this gute wool is heavenly.

As I look at the newborn yarn I see something unique, a blend that I had never thought of before, but that flirts with me in a new way. I see the differences between the fibers and I tingle at their odd union.

Opposites attract

The kemp and the silk in this blend represent the ends of a number of spectra. While the gute wool is raw (in the sense that it hasn’t been processed) the sari silk has been spun, dyed, woven, ripped and processed again. The colours of the sari silk are vibrant and almost luminescent while the gute wool is softly grey. The kemp doesn’t even take dye. While the sari silk easily blends into the draft the kemp in the gute wool is quirky and goes its own way, often out of the yarn entirely. The kemp leaving air pockets in the yarn, the silk filling them. The silk sari, sheer and draped, the gute wool heavily fulled, dense.

However, as there are numerous ways in which these fibers are different, I can find sweet similarities too. Both sari silk and gute wool have depth in their colours, just on different scales. One on the vibrant side and the other on a subtle grey scale. The fine gute undercoat goes hand in hand with the silk. All the fibers – outercoat, undercoat and silk follow the dance of the twist. Well, not so much the kemp.

Another parameter the sari silk and the kemp have in common is their length. They are both quite short, around an inch long. Due to this similarity in length they stay in the combs when I have pulled the teased fibers out. If I pull out more silk, I get the kemp too. And there they are, side by side, like fiber sisters.

Clown barf?

As I investigate the yarn I wonder if I added too much sari silk. There are quite a lot of colour splashes. Is it too much? I remember a Swedish spinning forum discussion where the word clown barf was mentioned in reference to a very pastelly combed top. Was this approaching a brighter clown barf cousin?

The gute silk yarn is finished. Is there too much sari silk, though?

I wrote down the wool to silk ratio and made a mental note about perhaps reducing the amount of sari silk. First I would see what happened in the weaving and fulling.

Sampling and fulling

So, I brought out my pin loom and started making samples to play with. Usually when I experiment with fulling I make two swatches – one that I leave as it is for reference and one that I full. This time I decided to make two fulling samples with different degrees of fulling. This turned out to be an excellent idea.

Swatches: Natural and two degrees of fulling. The lightly fulled swatch is fulled to 79 % of the natural swatch and the heavier fulled swatch 68 %.

My theory was that since I believed that silk doesn’t felt the splashes of colour would bulk up and make blobs. This is why I was considering using less sari silk. The clown barfiness calmed down in the woven samples and even more in the fulled swatches. In the heavier fulled swatch the sari silk hardly shows at all. Little enough to leave the sari silk out altogether for that degree of fulling. It turns out that silk does felt.

I’m not spinning this project right now since the gute fleece has a place at the back of the fleece queue. A wool board with the most important notes (and the findings in this blog post) will help me remember how I processed and spun the wool when it is this fleece’s turn.

I do love the lightly fulled swatch, the one I decided to make on a whim. It has a lovely movement that its stiffer cousin doesn’t have. The sari silk glows softly in the comfort of the squishy grey. Side by side with the sari silk is the quirky kemp, eager to see the world.

Under the loupe

Astonished by the fulling results I texted the pictures of the fulled samples to my brilliant friend Cecilia. “What do they look like under the loupe?” she asked in reply. That was the best idea I had heard all week. Of course I need to observe some felting action under a loupe!

Three swatches under the loupe: The original woven swatch to the left, lightly fulled in the middle and heavily fulled to the right.

So, after some fiddling I managed to get the three swatches under the loupe and some decent photos. As I look at them I see so many interesting things:

  • Silk fibers are really fine! But the gute undercoat is also very fine in this fleece.
  • I can see the light gute fibers, mostly the finer ones but also some with a wider diameter. This seems to confirm my observation of the staples being build up of mostly undercoat fibers and just a few strands of outercoat fibers and that the latter aren’t that coarse.
  • The quirkiness of the kemp (the dark fibers) really shows in the images.
  • There is a thrilling migration going on in the swatches which becomes very clear under the loupe. While the sari silk is superficial and the kemp in the center of the fabric in the original swatch (left), they seem to have traded places in the heavily fulled swatch (right). In both fulled swatches, but especially the heavily fulled, the kemp is on the surface and the sari silk cosily snug in the center. This is visible in the unmagnified photos too – you can see how the sari silk is more diffuse in the fulled samples and the kemp superficial, ready for take-off.

The migration was very fascinating to me and quite the opposite of what I had anticipated before I made the fulled samples. The clown barfiness faded and the marriage between the rough and fine was a success, especially in the lightly fulled sample. The kemp will probably keep migrating out into the world, way outside of the textile.

J’accuse

At the beginning of this week I didn’t know what to write in today’s blog post. I decided to try my gute silk idea to have something to write about. Hadn’t I done that I would never have analyzed it this thoroughly. J’accuse! I totally blame you, my dear readers, for this blog post and its revelations. Thank you! And thank you Cecilia for reminding me to exercise my loupe.

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
  • 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

In the grease

In the PLY magazine Double coated issue Maja Siska wrote an article about spinning a lopi style Icelandic yarn from the lock in the grease. I was intrigued by this and knew I needed to try it myself.

In the article Maja describes how she spins a lopi style yarn from a colour variegated fleece. By spinning from the lock those different colours will come to their right on their own instead of being blended into a medium grayish beige. She also spins the yarn in the grease.

I have read the article numerous times. There were so many things in Maja’s technique that were appealing to me, but most of all the combination. A singles yarn spun from the lock of variegated Icelandic fleece in the grease. What’s not to love?

Close

A lopi style yarn is a singles yarn with little or no twist, usually commercially spun to either be further spun into a plied yarn or used as it is. The yarn still holds together through the combination of long outercoat fibers and fine, warm undercoat fibers. Knitting with a lopi style yarn usually results in a very light but still warm garment. At first I thought a lopi yarn was an ancient tradition in Iceland. It turns out that it is not, it is a product of spinning mills producing yarn for the Icelandic sweaters that originated in the mid 20th century. Thus, the technique in Maja’s article isn’t a traditional way to spin a lopi style yarn. Rather, it is an adaptation to hand spinning from the mill produced pencil roving.

A lopi style yarn. Raw, yet elegant.

Adaptation to hand spinning also offers the opportunity to take advantage of the superpowers of hand spinning. I wanted to stay as close to the original structure of the fleece as possible. A yarn with this very gentle processing and handling gives me goosebumps. I often talk about processing with hand tools as a way to get to know the fleece. When just lightly teasing locks I skip a few steps, but I do get to come close to the wool and its original shape. I wrote a poetic style blog post about this closeness a couple of weeks ago.

Icelandic lamb’s fleece

I have wanted to get acquainted with Icelandic wool for a while now. I had even sought out a fleece supplier. When I read Maja’s article I knew I couldn’t wait anymore. I contacted Hulda at Uppspuni mini mill in Iceland to ask her for a lamb’s fleece.

A lovely variegated Icelandic lamb’s fleece from Uppspuni mini mill. And som accidental dark fleece.

I was in luck, the lambs were about to be shorn just a week or so later and Hulda promised to pick out a nice fleece for me. Another week or so later the fleece landed on my doorstep, full of icelandic sheepiness. I accidentally asked her to get me part of a darker fleece too. I figured I needed some contrasting colour yarn for a stranded yoke.

Teasing

At first I tried to just hand tease the locks, but despite the lovely openness of the staples I wanted a better separation of the fibers. After some experimenting I landed in lightly opening up of the locks in the direction of the fibers with a flicker and then hand teasing perpendicular to the direction of the fibers. That way I could open the cut end, the tip end and the middle and get the dirt out of the tip ends as well.

I tease the raw Icelandic locks lightly with a flicker and with my hands.

I love this opportunity to literally dig my hands into the raw fleece. Nothing has been done with this wool since shearing. By working with this fleece in the grease I have every opportunity in the world to experience it in its very essence, as well as the responsibility to make it justice. Now that’s intriguing!

Spinning from the lock

Spinning from the lock gives me the opportunity to be gentle with the wool and keep the yarn as close to the structure of the fleece on the hoof as possible.

Although I have teased the wool and the fibers seem well separated sideways, they are still quite aligned lengthwise. This makes drafting a challenge and I need to really focus on the fibers coming into the draft and the fibers next in line. My fingers need to listen to the wool to find the length of the fibers and thereby the proper distance between my hands.

Since the fibers are less separated than in a carded or combed preparation I need to work more with my hands to get the fibers reasonably evenly into the twist. I need to make sure an even amount of fiber is going into the twist while at the same time keeping the twist live and close to the point of twist engagement – that point where there is enough twist for the fibers to be able to pass each other without coming apart.

Wheel or spindle?

As you can see from some of the picture I started out spinning this yarn with a suspended spindle. In my vision to handle this yarn as gently and with as few tools as possible I figured a spindle would be the perfect spinning tool. I tried several different weights, but I never seemed to get it right. The yarn got too thin and I didn’t feel that flow that tells me everything is just right. I decided to try the spinning wheel and immediately felt at home. I think the wheel allowed me to work better with both my hands in the drafting.

In the grease

As you can see from some of the pictures I’m spinning by the fireplace. Apart from it being lovely with the warmth and the glowing embers, the heat melts the lanolin, resulting in a heavenly draft. The fibers go through my hands like butter and leave them soft and moisturized in the dry Swedish winter.

I very rarely spin wool with no lanolin, usually I have some lanolin left from gentle washing without detergents. The lanolin lubricates the draft and makes it even and steady. Spinning in the grease, though, is a whole different matter. The lanolin feels truly present in the spinning, like one of the main characters in the spinning drama.

Going backwards

Despite the smooth drafting with the lanolin all soft from the heat of the fireplace, spinning from the lock requires a bit more effort than spinning a prepared rolag or top. Drafting takes longer which results in quite a lot of twist. I tread faster and use my largest whorl (with a ratio of 7.5:1), but still there is far too much twist for my purpose with this yarn. My solution for this is to simply back the yarn once. I spin the bobbin again, but against the twist, removing enough twist to end up with a twist angle of around 20°.

After having spun the yarn I backed it to remove some of the twist and invite some air.

The yarn fluffs up and looks truly inviting as a singles yarn, displaying its whole colour palette, lanolin glistening like tiny stars.

Washing and shocking

To wash my lopi style yarn spun in the grease I do what I normally do with a finished skein: I wash with an organic shampoo in the first water (as hot as my tap can muster, around 55°C), white vinegar in the second and rinse with a third.

Finished skeins of singles lopi style yarn in a lopi style. The skeins are unwashed.

Since the yarn is single there is some energy in it, even if the twist is low. Also, a singles yarn may not be as sturdy as a plied one. So, to ease the energy and to bring some strength to the yarn I full it lightly after the third bath: I dip the yarn in cold water. The temperature difference is enough to push the scales into holding on to each other and stabilize the yarn slightly. After fulling I squeeze the skeins in a towel, whack them against the floor and hang to dry.

Lopi style yarn, S-spun in the grease from lightly teased locks on a spinning wheel. 32 g, 63 m, 1935 m/kg. 10 wpi.

I’m very happy with the resulting skeins. They are not completely evenly spun, but as a whole they will produce an even knitted structure. I’m looking forward to seeing the colour variations and the texture in the knitted fabric. I just haven’t had the time to swatch yet.

Thank you Maja for an excellent article. Thank you Hulda for the loveliest fleece.

If you are a patron (or decide to become one) there is a digital postcard video I put together for you where I show you how I prepare and spin this wool into a lopi style yarn like I describe in this post.

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.