A mystery linen shirt, a hedge top, a cauldron and a summer sky are the main characters in this post. Today I give you a blue story.
Ms Klein
Once upon a time there was a shirt, a white linen shirt named Calvin Klein. At leas that was the name on a tag at the back of the shirt’s neck. One morning, sky blue with just a few fuzzy clouds, she found herself casually draped over a hedge in a residential area, a very peculiar place to wake up in for a white shirt. Her back ached and she wasn’t very pleased about her situation.
A hedgerow conundrum
The house occupants were puzzled about the shirt’s arrival in their hedge, a perfectly fine white shirt, hanger and all. They confered for a while and decided to leave it in the hedge for a couple of days in case someone recognized it as theirs. But nobody claimed the shirt. The mother of the house decided the teenage daughter would be the new guardian of the shirt. And so Calvin came to stay with the family in the teenager’s closet.
A white linen shirt appeared on our hedge one morning in the late -80’s.
This was over 30 years ago. Calvin was worn and enjoyed for many years. For a while she was too small and for another while just fine again. The owner wasn’t much of a white shirt wearer, though. Still, Calvin was worn on a beloved auntie’s funeral only last summer.
Blue is coming to town
An indigo dyer came to town and offered a dip in their cauldron to clothes in need of some vibrant blues in their lives. Calvin had got some mysterious stains, and the now 50-year old woman figured Calvin would be the perfect candidate for some indigo dyeing.
I mended the holes under the arms with a linen patch on the back and running stitches with a linen yarn.
When the woman was about to scour Calvin to make her susceptible to the dye she discovered some torn spots in the armpits. She put a linen patch behind the spots and made neat stitches with linen thread to protect them from further damage.
Dyeing Day
The dyeing day came. The woman rode her bike the nine kilometers to the museum where the dyeing was to take place. She met up with her friend, she too with garments to dye, and together with lots of other people looking for some more blue in their lives and wardrobes, they began to dip their textiles in the cauldron, that looked a lot like a large plastic tub. The friend had brought two pieces of natural linen folded into cubes to experiment with some shibori-style dyeing.
Soaking textiles and textile cubes (left), starting the indigo bath (center) and dipping time (right).
The indigo bath had a yellow-greenish colour and a compost-like smell. Yet, the two friends trusted the instructors and kept dipping. And there was magic. Once they took the textiles out of the cauldron the limey green started turning blue. They swayed the sopping wet textiles in the air and watched the blue magic happen.
Learning curve
This was the first time the woman had dyed with indigo and she made lots of mistakes. But she learned from them and got a first sense of what it is like to dye with indigo. There was lots of dipping, drippning, airing and laughter. Some rain too.
The textiles are green when they first come out of the tub, and then turn blue.
After a few hours, cauldron (and stomachs) was almost empty, the rain plenty and the woman really had to pee, so the two friends gave their dyed textiles a final wash and went their separate ways.
Results
Wet and hungry and with soaking wet textiles in her backpack, thee woman rode her bike the nine kilometers back home. She tossed the garments into the washing machine and got a lovely dinner that her teenager had made.
Calvin in her new summer sky look (left) beside a wardrobe friend in the same look (center). To the right a tunic that used to be the same purple as the garment underneath it. For some old reason it got a more greenish colour. Still lovely! In the background the unfolded piece of natural linen.
The following day the clothes were dry. They were a bit lighter than she had expected and a little more uneven that she had hoped for. But still, very beautiful. Calvin was very happy with her new look that reminded her of the sky that day when she had woken up atop the hedge.
Nice and orderly in the armpit.
And the mending? It turned into a beautiful blue too.
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.
Myyoutube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
I have a facebook pagewhere I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden!by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
I have a long vacation and I will be traveling with my family. One important part of packing is of course crafting projects. A student recently asked me how I plan for for spinning on the road. Here is an extended answer to her question.
One favourite spinning technique for traveling is supported spindle spinning. In fact, I started to learn how to spin on a supported spindle after my husband and I had decided to stop flying, for climate reasons. I was looking for a craft that would be practical for the long train ride to Austria, and supported spindle spinning was my answer. And look where it got me! I published a short video of me spinning on the train, and continued to create videos. Just a couple of months later someone asked me if I could teach the technique, and that is how I started teaching spinning.
Favourites
In the post I will talk about how I prepare for spinning and crafting on the road, but first I will give you some of my favourite techniques:
supported spindle spinning
suspended spindle spinning
band weaving on a backstrap loom
different kinds of braiding
nalbinding
two-end knitting
other small sized knitting
And if there is room
portable spinning wheel.
Important factors for spinning on the road
There are several things I consider as I pack for spinning on the road:
how much luggage space I have
how I travel
having a variety of techniques
portability
where I’m going.
This year we’re going on two trips – a week in a log cabin where we will be taking day hikes in a nearby national park, and five days in an Airbnb apartment near the beach.
Luggage space
When I plan what crafts to bring on a journey one important thing is the kind of bags I will be packing in – suitcase, soft bag, backpack or a combination? The sturdiness or squishiness will determine what I can bring and what will be wiser to leave at home.
A small band weave and a 10 gram cross-arm spindle takes up no space at all.
If I travel with a backpack I make sure I don’t bring things that can break or that can injure me. I don’t bring combs or cards on a backpack journey, but a supported spindle is a good companion, as well as small backstrap weaving projects. Smaller knitting projects will usually work fine. Perhaps a suspended spindle if I plan to walk and spin.
If I pack in a suitcase I may bring things like combs, they will be easier to pack in a hard bag than a squishy one. In a suitcase I would also be able to bring fleece in a vacuum bag. If I go by car I bring a basket for various tools if there is room.
The journey
The journey itself is also a factor that plays in. Can I spin on the journey? I don’t craft in the car since I easily get car sick if I need to focus on the project. But a train ride is perfect for crafting!
Crafting on the train
When I travel I prefer to do so by train. Knitting is of course a good option, preferably not a stranded colourwork, though, since there are too many potentially loose items to keep an eye on. Supported spindle spinning will always be a favourite.
When I weave bands on tre train I fasten the warp between my waist and the coat hanger on the back of the seat in front of me (left). If there is no coat hanger, I loop the far end of the warp around my foot, either with the leg straight or propped onto my other knee.
Lately I have also come to love to weave bands on the train. It doesn’t take up much luggage space, none at all, really. Weaving is also quite unexpected and can be quite the conversation starter. I also like the image of the band getting longer the further I go along the rails.
I usually fasten the warp between my waist and the coat hook in the back of the seat in front of me. From my experience with European rail companies, though, I know that not all have coat hangers. In fact, I think I have only seen them on the Swedish railway companies. But do not fret, fastening the warp with a loop around a foot works just fine. In the beginning I make the loop with the warp itself, and toward the end I use something like the torn off hem of an old sheet.
I’m weaving a linen band on a recent train ride.
Before many train rides I have warped for a band without a specific purpose, but the truth is, there is always room for another band! When planning the travel crafting for this summer I realized that I needed a band to tie the inner ends of a linen pinafore dress that I am planning. And so I had the perfect reason to warp for a sweet linen band.
A variety of techniques
When I pack my crafting for a journey I usually like to bring a variety of techniques, at least if I will be gone for more than just a few days. The techniques can vary for the mental variation, but also to avoid getting strained from doing only one craft.
In two-end knitting (left) the yarn won’t roll away since it is secured with a knot. It is knit with a circular needle (or dpns) and is quite slow. Nalbinding is done with a blunt needle only, and the technique is also slow. Both perfect for traveling, both sitting and walking.
I also consider where the craft may be suitable. For instance, I may bring a small band weaving project for sitting down, a two-end knitting project or nalbinding for sitting or walking, and a suspended spindle for standing, sitting or walking.
Portability
I want a travel project to be easy to grab and go. If possible, I want it to fit easily in a bag, both for the journey and for the stay. I don’t want it to be too flimsy or have too many loose parts. A stranded colourwork knitting is not my first option, neither is a large sweater or a lace shawl. I also wouldn’t pick a sewing or embroidery project. There are just too many needles and threads that can get lost.
A bronze-age braid from leftover handspun yarn from my linen shawl.
I also don’t want the project to end before I get back home, I don’t want to risk being empty-handed. Nalbinding and two-end knitting are perfect travel companions. They are both quite small and compact and I don’t run the risk of finishing them since both techniques are very slow.
Where to?
The destination can be important in choosing projects too. Will I be in a city, in the countryside or in the forest? What will I be doing once we get to our destination? A good project for a city may be knitting and a coutryside craft may be a suspended spindle for example. And there are lots of trees to weave with in the forest.
Forest, city or countryside? I choose my crafting projects depending on the destination. Left and right photos by Dan Waltin.
As you may realize, planning projects for a journey is something I truly enjoy. And, secretly, sometimes I may plan a journey depending on the craft I want to hang out with.
What about fiber?
The student who asked me about spinning on the road was more specific than I have described so far: She wanted to know how I pack fiber. She knew I don’t spin from commercially prepared wool and wondered if I pack wool preparation tools or if I process the wool before I leave. Well, that depends. If I go by car and stay for more than a few days I may bring combs or cards. Or just a flicker if I want to spin from lightly teased locks. Otherwise I may process my fiber before we leave and store it in a sturdy box. I do this usually the day before we leave – wool preparation is fresh produce and will go bad after a time. How fast depends on how the preparation has been stored and handled and how prone the wool is to felting.
Examples
So, my husband and I just came back from a trip to a rented log cabin in the countryside. We drove in a rental car that was supposed to be quite small, since our children decided to stay home, but we got a huge car instead. So I flung my travel wheel in and a pair of combs together with a bag of wool.
For a week in a log cabin we had room for my travel wheel in the for some reason giant rental car. I also brought a pair of combs. I used the wool waste as self-felting cushioning in my socks for a few hikes in a nearby national park.
To be on the safe side I also prepared a backstrap loom with a small band, a twelve-strand linen braid, a supported spindle and a 10 gram cross-armed spindle. I spun a silk yarn on both spindles. Now, I just wrote that I don’t use commercially prepared fiber, but this silk top was something I bought many years ago and was there for me to use.
For an upcoming train ride I am bringing a small band weaving (commercial yarn). These pictures are from when we waited for the rental car to charge. I do not recommend this sitting position for a moving car. Photo to the right by Dan waltin. Please admire the camera setup.
Some of these things I prepared for both this trip and an upcoming train journey, especially the weave and the braid. But I did weave for a bit in the parked car while we were waiting for it to charge. So for the train ride I will bring two small project bags – one with the band weave and the braid and the other one with the two silk spinning projects. I will have plenty to do!
Here is a video I shot a few years ago when we took the train to Austria, featuring lots of travel projects.
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.
Myyoutube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
I have a facebook pagewhere I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden!by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Another long-time project is finished, a linen shawl in yarn I spun last summer and have been knitting off and on since then. The flax is between 80 and 120 years old and comes from the Austrian Berta’s flax project.
Many of you may have heard of the Berta’s flax project, started by Austrian Christiane Seufferlein who got a dowry chest filled with flax grown and prepared in the 1940’s. This was the first of many such chests, and now Christiane ships stricks of flax all over the world to enthusiastic spinners who want to honour the memory of Berta and all the other women whose chests have been donated. You can read more about Berta’s flax and become a member of the Berta’s flax Guild here.
My handspun linen shawl is finished! Photos by Dan Waltin.
Spinning on the balcony
I got a few stricks of flax from the Berta’s flax project, between 80 and 120 years old. I spun it in the afternoon shade on my balcony last summer on my sweet flax wheel Henrietta. Since I had learned that flax grows counter-clockwise I spun it counter-clockwise.
80–120 year old stricks of Austrian flax from the Berta’s flax project (left). Spinning on my flax wheel Henrietta, while wearing a blouse that once belonged to my Austrian great-grandmother Henrietta (center). To the right a finished skein of my handspun flax yarn.
The Austrian flax has an overwhelming quality. All the steps from sewing and growing to retting and processing has been performed with such skill and dedication. And why shouldn’t it have been – this was a vital life insurance for the women of the time. And I got to spin it, which I did with love and reference to their work.
I had no specific plans with the yarn, but having seen Christiane in a beautiful hand-knit shawl I decided I would knit something similar, so I plied the yarn into a Z-plied yarn.
Knitting
As I started knitting my linen shawl I realized that I unplied the Z-plied yarn as I knit – the yarn ended up in two strands held together in the fabric. I put some extra plying twist in the following skeins, which made it a little better. The lace fringe at the ends turned out biased, but after blocking it doesn’t really show. But I did learn something! As I keep telling my students: My mistakes are a map of what I have learned.
Knitting in Austria, on the train back home and at home on the balcony.
I brought the knitting project on the train to Austria that summer, the same route my parents had taken in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s to be able to be together. I really wanted to bring the knitting project back to where it had been grown and processed so many decades ago, to the land where my father and my grandmothers were born and where I have three of my four roots. When I met Christiane I could also show her what was becoming of the flax she had so generously sent me.
I could live in this shawl. It is cool, soft and has the sweetest drape. Photo by Dan Waltin.
Flax isn’t very flexible in knitting, so my hands hurt after a while. Other projects have cut in line, but the shawl has always been patiently waiting, cool and sweet.
Harvest shades
In one end of the linen shawl the colour of the flax is slightly darker than the in the rest of the shawl. And that is how flax works – depending on weather, location, retting and climate, the flax can differ in colour. It is a sweet reminder of the natural material and that nature is perfect in its imperfection.
Finishing
I finished the shawl this week. At the same time, we were packing for a vacation in a rented log cabin and things were scattered around the house in preparation for the journey. I wanted to block the shawl, but I realized that it would take up too much floor space. Then I realized I could just bring the shawl and my blocking wires to the log cabin and block the shawl on one of the spare beds. And so I did.
I blocked the shawl on one of the spare beds in the log cabin and wove in the ends down by the creek (photo right: Dan Waltin)
After having woven in the ends I had a finished linen shawl and the perfect location for a photo shoot.
Some numbers
Some questions always arise regarding measurements and weights, so here you go:
Shawl weight: 275 grams
Shawl measurements: 56 x 200 centimeters
Yarn grist: 3200 m/kg
Yarn meterage for the shawl: 880 meters.
A finished linen shawl. On the left fringe you can see a slight colour shift. Photo by Dan Waltin
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.
Myyoutube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
I have a facebook pagewhere I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden!by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
I always finish my longer courses with a wool tasting – an opportunity to try samples of five unknown sheep breeds, prepare and spin them. But it is also a lot more than that.
This past week I have been at Sätergläntan craft education center, teaching my five-day course A spindle a day. Every day for four days the students get to learn about a new spindle type – suspended spindle, floor spindle, in-hand spindle and supported spindle.
This is the sixth time I teach at Sätergläntan, and the fourth time I teach this particular class. Sätergläntan craft education centre is a beautiful spot in County Dalarna in Sweden, with both year-long courses and five-day summer courses. Any day of the year Sätergläntan is sparkling with craft, crafting and crafters. The opportunity to talk about crafting at any of the meals during the week is truly unique, and very dear to me.
Students in deep concentration on suspendera spindles and in-hand spindles.
My students have had their share of joy, frustration, revelations and insights, all from their skill level and way of learning. My challenge as a teacher is to do my best to meet every student at their level and learning process. It is also a great inspiration.
Explore and learn
Although we focus on one particular spindle type each day, the knowledge the students get from one spindle type is of good use to them for the spindle types to come. They learn about the Twist Model and how they use it with all the spindle types, as well as how to work with the fiber we happen to have at hand for different purposes. Through the whole course the students also prepare their fiber. I encourage them to play and explore to be able to make informed decisions as they go.
Floor spindles and supported spindles by Björn Peck. In the background (right) spindle cases by me.
For the course I brought all the spindles for the students. That means 10 of each of the four spindle types I taught in the class. Suspended spindles and in-hand spindles for the students to borrow and floor spindles and supported spindles from Björn Peck for purchase. And there were purchases. My suitcase was a lot lighter on the train back home.
Wool tasting
The wool tasting takes place on the fifth day. By then the students usually feel safe in the group, they know their strengths and challenges and they have built a bank of experiences. They have made mistakes and learned from them. The lessons are worked into their muscle memories.
Wool tasting is an exercise I came up with when I started teaching summer courses at Sätergläntan. In the wool tasting the students get to try a sample of one unknown fleece for fifteen minutes, for a total of five different fleece samples. During these fifteen minutes the students’ task is to prepare (some of) the wool, spin it and take some notes on a wool tasting table I provide them with. They fill in their first impression of the wool, how they want to prepare and spin it, and what the result was. On the edge of the wool tasting table are holes so that they can attach a yarn sample. Everything is done in silence. As they explore the wool, take notes, prepare and spin it I sit and watch, secretly fizzing of pride of my students and the decisions they make.
A diploma
In the wool tasting the students get the opportunity to put all they have learned to the test. When I teach I want them to be able to go home after the course has finished and continue on their own, exploring and making choices based on the tools and the experience they have. And they really do. The table they fill in is just for them, I have nothing to do with it. But the questions I ask them in the table guide them into noting different things about the wool before they start, as they work, and how their little yarn sample turns out when the fifteen minutes are up.
The time limit isn’t there to stress them, it’s rather to force them to make intuitive decisions and not overthink their choices. As they are finished they don’t only have have a table with yarn samples, they have made their own diplomas of the just finished five-day course.
A spinning meditation
After the wool tasting we have a chat about their experiences of it. One final thing is left: The spinning meditation. This is when we spin together in silence. I guide them into noticing aspects of their spinning like the wool, the fiber, the spindle and the motions. Toward the end I invite them to close their eyes as they spin. This is another opportunity for them to realize how, through the week, they have gotten to know their wool with all their senses, trusting that it will guide them if they allow their hands to listen.
If you want to try a spinning meditation, I have a spinning meditation video in English and Swedish.
After a few train delays I finally got back home to my family. I will keep this week at Sätergläntan in my heart and hope to come back next summer. Thank you spinning students and other crafters for a wonderful week!
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.
Myyoutube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
I have a facebook pagewhere I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden!by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
This week it was time to pinch my Japanese indigo plants. This will hopefully result in bushier plants. It also paves the way for new plants and some blue play.
Please don’t ask me anything about the dyeing process as I have no idea what I am doing, I just follow instructions (and deviate from them) in the courses I am taking.
I am childishly smitten by my indigo plants. I have one rectangular container just outside the front door where I can keep an eye on them, plus a couple of pots in the pallet collar greenhouse. The other day I couldn’t help myself, and prepared to pinch the Maruba plants and use the leaves for dyeing.
Maruba salt rub
It’s generally best to pick fresh indigo in the morning, but this first time I did it in the afternoon, just because I couldn’t help myself. I got quite a lot from my little indigo garden. I decided to do this as simply as possible, to be able to focus on the process that was all new to me. This means that I didn’t weigh either leaves or textile, I took no photos during the process and I had no particular expectations.
I decided to to the salt rub method – a method where you use salt to extract the liquid and then massage the leaves with the textile for 5–20 minutes. It was lovely to watch the liquid and the textile – supported spindle spun silk yarn in this case – slowly change in colour and depth. This needs to be done fast! As soon as the leaves are broken and/or dried the blue colour comes out of the plants and is consumed.
In one of my vases of indigo stalks, one stalk doesn’t reach the water. The plant dries out and the blue colour emerges.
I cut the plants, placed the cuttings directly in cold water and removed the leaves from the stalks. When I had removed all the leaves I put them in an empty bowl together with a little salt and the hank and started massaging.
Three mini hanks of supported spindle spun mulberry silk yarn dyed with indigo from the salt rub method and its afterbaths.
I massaged my mini silk hank for about 17 minutes and got a sweet mediterranean blue. The silk looks a bit tauseled from the massaging, but I don’t mind. I just love the colour and the fact that I got it from my very own plants. As I washed and rinsed the skein the water turned a bit yellow and the skein a little more blue.
Newly cut indigo Maruba plants. In the background vases of deleaved stalks waiting to grow roots.
I cut the plants to make them bushier – when I cut just above a node of the stalk, two new stalks will grow out. I saved the deleaved stalks and put them in water to grow roots. When the roots are long enough I will put these new plants in soil.
Afterbaths
I put another skein in the leftover liquid and leaf mix and placed it in the greenhouse overnight. the skein turned into a lighter turquoise than the salt rubbed skein. I continued the process with the same bath on the stove at low heat together with a new skein and a little baking soda. After a while the skein turned into sort of an olive part of the spectrum. I added a simple thread that got some beige colour, perhaps learning slight towards pink.
Kojoko salt rub
This morning I pinched my Kojoko plants. There were only four plants to pinch, so I just put a simple thread in it. And some of my hair! I envisioned a blue curl, but all I achieved was a green forehead. And, in a certain light, if you squint, you can see a shape of blue. I was really hoping for my white strands to deliver here, but I guess I’ll have to wait for some more white before I can get that blue curl.
Yarn samples! The top yarn has swum for a short while in an afterbath from the leftover leaves and liquid of a salt rub (Maruba). The bottom yarn has been dyed in a later salt rub (Kojoko).
Even if the hair dye wasn’t successful I really love the colour I got on the silk yarn sample, a very crispy mediterranean blue. It felt different than the colour I got from the Maruba. It might have been the difference in species or difference in harvest time, I have no idea.
Oh, and I might have lost the turquoise sample thread down the drain as I rinsed. I might also have lifted out the drawers from the washstand and unscrew the pipes to get hold of the thread.
Eco print
I also tried some eco prints with a few stray leaves. These turned out way richer in colour than the baby leaf I printed a couple of months ago. I love how the colour is richer close to the nerves and the stalks than in the rims and the tips.
There is a lot more depth in this eco print than the one I did a couple of months ago with a baby leaf.
There is so much potential in this plant! I have just started playing with it and there is so much more to explore and discover.
Woad status
Meanwhile, in my fox violated hügelkultur, my woad plants are mostly alive. Some have died in the drought, but I still have around eight European woad plants left and a few less of the Chinese woad.
Chinese woad plants under the compost grids, reasonably safe from the fox. Note the baby oak in the foreground.
I think the fox has tried to dig its way in, there are traces outside the oak branch wall of the Hügelkultur, but so far the woad babies are all right.
Tomorrow I’m leaving for Sätergläntan where I will teach the five day course A spindle a day. I am very excited and hope to learn a lot!
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.
Myyoutube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
I have a facebook pagewhere I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden!by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
In the end of April I wrote a post about growing woad and Japanese indigo and of my blue dreams. Today I share the progress and setbacks of my blue reality.
I walk down to the community garden at 6.15 am to water the allotment. The air is still cool, but I know it is going to be another hot day. The air smells of morning and I soak it in and let it into my lungs. Slowly I fill the watering cans and pour the dear drops over the allotment beds. The drops fall differently on different plants – flowing down the matte kale leaves, softly bending the broad bean stalks and flowing over the flax plants like a wave on the ocean.
Indigo cuttings
I am taking a course in growing, harvesting and extracting dyestuff from woad and Japanese indigo. We have two sorts of each – European and Chinese woad and the Japanese indigo sorts Maruba and Kojoko. We got baby plants of the Kojoko, since it has quite a long developing time, and seeds of the Maruba.
As soon as the Kojoko babies were large enough I cut them and made new plants of the cuttings, and as the new plants were large enough I made another set of new cuttings. I just love the idea of making new plants from existing ones! The indigo cuttings produce roots really quickly, I can almost see them grow. And once the new plants are in the soil they start growing almost immediately.
My Japanese indigo cuttings are developing roots.
Plants at play
The Maruba that I got seeds from have also germinated and grown into fine specimens. A couple of weeks ago I decided the plants were big enough to come out and play. I planted both the Kojoko and the Maruba plants in clusters of 3–5 plants in a rectangular planting box outdoors, just by the front door so I can keep a close eye on them. I draped a garden fabric over the plants to protect them from too strong sunshine and to give them a more even temperature. And of course I used wool as mulching to keep as much moist as possible in the soil.
Japanese indigo Maruba (left and center) and Kojoko (center and right).
The plants seem to have adapted quite well to their new home. I keep two pots under garden fabric in the pallet collar greenhouse too. They are larger and seem to thrive more than the ones outdoors. However, they may be more sensitive to dehdrating or pests. I imagine it can’t be bad to have plants in two locations, should anything happen to any of them.
Woad woe
I replanted the woad plants outdoors a few weeks ago. We have a Hügelkultur in the far end of our garden, built from branches from a felled oak. It is quite large, and my idea was that it would be perfect for the woad. I arranged the bed with fresh soil and covered it with wool before I planted the woad in it.
A sweet little plant of European woad.
One morning the bed was in total shambles – someone had dug up the soil, leaving the tiny plants to their own destiny. I’m almost sure it was our local fox, perhaps it is looking for places to bury pray for the winter. I remember looking out the window one morning years ago, to find the fox digging up a very dead rat from our kailyard.
With tears in my eyes and brutally struck by this blue reality I replanted the plants I could save, plus some other ones that I still had in pots, covered the soil with compost grids and hoped it would keep the fox out. It didn’t. This time the plants were totally ruined.
The foxes’ forest
More tears, the last pot plants, four grids and heavy stones were offered to the Hügelkultur. The next morning the Borlotto beans, with no grid, were dug up.
Japanese indigo Kojoko (left) and Maruba (right).
We live in a city, but it is also the foxes’ forest and we have to deal with that. I cry a bit and move on. One second I dream about exploring the different extracting methods to dye my handspun yarns, the next I deal with violently and irrevocably broken stems. I tell myself that this is gardening. I can do my very best with my plants, but I can’t stop the slugs from gooing their way across the soil, eating everything in their way, the roe deers from munching peas and chard, blackbirds from pinching the strawberries or foxes from organizing their winter pantry. Or, as this June so far, the sun from drying the soil for weeks on end. I’ll just have to deal with it.
The garden potty
One way to take care of our plants to the best of our ability is to pee on them. Or, rather, water them with diluted urine. Urine is one of the best fertilizers. In fact, most commercial fertilizers are based on the Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium ratio in urine. I use my garden potty, designed to work as a watering can, for that particular purpose. I dilute the urine 1:10 and water the most nutrient craving plants with it – kale, tomatoes, leeks, courgettes, chili. And, of course the Japanese Indigo. Practical, easy and cheap!
The garden potty ready to deliver some nutrients to the tomatoes.
You can read more about this at Sara Bäckmo’s site (in English or Swedish). She is one of my favourite gardening queens.
Eco printing dreams
It seems to be the summer of colour dreams. As I have been obsessing over videos and tutorials of different ways to use indigo plants for dyeing, videos with eco printing have popped up too. At first slight I wasn’t that jazzed about it, but now I am equally obsessed with that. I have bought seeds for a number of cosmos (rosenskära) species, as well as coreopsis, pin cushion and hollyhock (tigeröga, praktvädd och stockros) to have a library of flower shapes and colours.
My very first eco print, a leaf of Japanese indigo Kojoko.
To be able to play other seasons than summer, I also bought a flower press for bundle dyeing with pressed flowers. I keep a close eye on Swedish eBay for second hand clothes in linen and silk, that may potentially look better with some flower arrangements printed on them. Also I have a plan to sew a dress designed for eco printing. In the meantime I look at the sweet little swatch I made my first indigo eco print on and listen to my heart singing, in blue.
The Dogwood Dyer has good tutorials for eco printing, bundle dyeing and what plants to use for it. She also has tutorials for working with fresh indigo and some sweet inspiration on her Instagram account.
It hasn’t rained for weeks, the lawns are yellowed and the plants seem to have come to a standstill. The weather forecast promises rain on Sunday. I want to drink in the smell of fresh summer rain, see the leaves cleaned of pollen and dig my hands into moist earth. At 7.15 am I am done. I have filled and emptied two 13 liter watering cans 11 times each into the garden beds, hoping the water will sustain the plants a little longer. I long for Sunday.
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.
Myyoutube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
I have a facebook pagewhere I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden!by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
It’s done. The knit sleeve jacket I have been working on since I started spinning the sleeve yarn four years ago. This is one of my biggest projects. It includes five different textile techniques, and I am glad to share it with you today. It’s really done.
It started with sweet locks of dalapäls wool and a dream of a knit sleeve jacket. This project has been with me for such a long time and I can’t believe it’s finished.
The making
Creating this knit sleeve jacket has been such a joy. I have had this project in my hands in one way or another on and off since 2019. The sleeves have been with me on many train rides and vacations. Lately also on coffe breaks and meetings at work.
In 2023 I have worked on the sleeves more focused and finished them, and since mid-April I have sewn and embroidered almost every evening. I have felt the soft and safe wool in my hands over and over again.
A five-technique project is finished and I am very proud of it.
Sometimes when I craft I watch a series or listen to an audiobook. But for this project, I have mostly just enjoyed being in the materials and in my hands, letting my thoughts come and go like the wool between my hands, the stitches from needle to needle, the thread up and down the cloth and my breath in and out.
The model
This jacket has elements that are traditional in the County of Dalarna. I am not from Dalarna, but I am intrigued by the techniques and the rich textile heritage of the area. The techniques are sometimes used together, but probably not the way I have put them together. So, while to an untrained eye (like mine) the jacket may look like something of a folk costume jacket, it is not. It is just the result of my exploration and celebration of various techniques and designs.
The lining is almost in place, just the front opening left to stitch.
Five textile techniques
So, in this project I have used five textile techniques:
I spun the yarn on a supported spindle. The wool comes from the longest locks of several dalapäls sheep.
I two-end knitted the sleeves with my spindle spun yarn
I bought the broadcloth and hand sewed the bodice with waxed linen thread (commercial). I ebayed the lining and machine sewed it together and hand stitched it onto the broadcloth
I wove the band with a commercial linen yarn
I embroidered the greenery with påsöm technique and commercial yarn.
I will walk you through the techniques and my journey with them.
Supported spindle spinning the yarn
I started this project in 2019, spinning the yarn from locks of dalapäls wool on a supported spindle. This has of course taken a lot of time, but I have loved every spinning second. Dalapäls wool is very shiny and has strong outercoat fibers and fine undercoat fibers.
I have spun the sleeve yarn on supported Björn Peck spindles from teased locks of dalapäls wool.
I opened up and lightly teased each staple and spun from the cut ends. This was to make sure I got both undercoat and outercoat fibers evenly in the yarn.
Since I wanted to two-end knit the sleeves I spun the yarn counter-clockwise and plied clockwise. This way the yarn looks its very best for this particular technique.
Two-end knitting the yarn
Tvåändsstickning, or two-end knitting is a technique that has an old history in Sweden, and particularly in Dalarna. The knitter alternates two yarn ends, usually the inner and outer ends from the same ball, and wrap them around each other at the back between the stitches. Tvåändsstickning means two-end knitting. A common translation is twined knitting. This translation came about since someone decided it was more commercially pleasing than two-end knitting. I prefer the latter.
From lock to sleeve through teasing, spinning, plying, skeining and hand winding a centerpull ball.
After some adventures with running out of yarn, finding a suitable substitute sheep, frogging and reknitting I finally knit up to the armholes this spring. In April this year Karin Kahnlund, master knitter with two-end knitting as her specialty, helped me calculate how to decrease for the sleeve caps. I knit the caps in the round and cut the steeks when I was happy. All of a sudden I was done! And very happy.
The finished sleeves. Right side out (top) and wrong side out (bottom). The twisted stitches create horizontal ridges on the wrong side, making the fabric very sturdy and wind proof.
The sleeves weigh approximately 250 grams each, without the embroideries. Here are some resources about spinning and knitting the sleeves:
Karin Kahnlund also helped me find a pattern for the bodice, a model called Gertrud. This also happened to be from the County of Dalarna. I had been thinking about having a professional seamstress sew the bodice for me, but Karin cheered me on to do it myself. And I am glad I did, I got to spend some lovely time with high quality broadcloth and waxed linen thread in hand.
I made a tuile out of an old sheet and felt very grown up.
The bodice pattern is quite simple. Two back panels and one front panel with two vertical darts on each panel. The front opening is also shaping the garment. I made a tuile out of a sheet first to make sure the fit was right. The bottom hem was originally straight, but I added some shape to it.
Gertrud the bodice, in fine broadcloth.
Years ago I had an itch for ebayed textiles. In one Ebay raid I found a piece of printed cotton cloth that I immediately knew would serve as the lining for the bodice. However, the piece was too small, so I paired it up with a similar fabric from the same raid. I did machine sew it, but stitched it to the bodice by hand.
A woven band
You know when you get an itch to weave a linen band in candy store colours? Well, I did, and I happened to find colours that would perfectly match the jacket lining, in Kerstin Neumüller’s web shop. Initially I had planned to do something with the band on the lining, but as I saw one version of the bodice pattern with woven bands along the front openings, I knew that was where they should be.
A woven linen band in candystore colours, perfectly matching the ebayed cotton lining. Clasps from DiviniCouture. Right photo by Nora Waltin.
I wove the band on a backstrap loom, using just a bundle of hand carved sticks. Here is a blog post poem I wrote while weaving the band on a train ride back in February.
Påsöm embroidery
Påsöm is also a technique that is traditional in Dalarna. Bulky, almost paw print like flowers stitched with 4-ply, airy yarn in scrumptious colours. Who wouldn’t want that on their two-end knitted sleeves? As it turns out, the dense quality of two-end knitted fabric works perfectly for påsöm embroidery. A tradition in Dala-Floda, where the påsöm technique has been mostly used, is to stitch påsöm patterns on two-end knitted mittens. I decided to fill parts of my sleeves with the bombastic flower arrangements, with commercial yarn from Flodaros. I wouldn’t dream of spinning this yarn myself, let alone dye it.
The finished sleeves, Left underarm and right upper arm. To the right are some traditional two-end knitted sleeves. On some of them the pattern is larger the closer to the shoulder they get.
In some older knit sleeve jackets with knit patterns, the shapes are larger the higher up on the sleeves they are placed. I wanted to do something similar with my embroidery. On the right upper arm the top flower is larger than the middle and the bottom one and the arrangement also narrowes downward. On the left underarm the pansies are the same size, but the greenery gets larger towards the elbow.
You can read more about påsöm embroidery here. And here are some of my other påsöm projects: A hat, a pocket and a spindle case.
If you are a patron (or want to become one) you can see some of the påsöm embroidery on the sleeves in the May 2023 video postcard.
Embroidering on two-end knitting
Påsöm embroidery has been traditional on two-end knitted textiles. Because of the technique with the tight knitting, the twisting on the wrong side and the fine needles, the fabric is quite dense and inelastic. In this sense, it behaves more like woven fabric than knitted. I can stitch my embroidery without using an embroidery hoop and without running the risk of the sleeve getting bubbly or the embroidery pulled together.
Two-end knitting is a lovely textile to embroider on.
Still, it’s different than embroidering on broadcloth and it was a delight to get to know the cooperation between the påsöm embroidery and the two-end knitted material.
Wearing the knit sleeve jacket
As I put the jacket on I suddenly wear all those hours of making – spinning, knitting, sewing, weaving and embroidering. I know every nook and cranny of this jacket and I am proud of every corner of it, including the wonky stitches. Perhaps especially the wonky stitches. This jacket has been made with such love, dedication and curiosity.
The sweetest linen shift, from the Berta’s flax project (video screen shots).
The other day I picked up a parcel from my friend Christiane of the Berta’s flax project. She had sent me the most beautiful handspun, handwoven 120-ish year old shift that was just perfect to wear underneath the knit sleeve jacket. It was likely worn by an Austrian woman named Josefine.
Wearing this jacket is such a joy!
I had no idea of the finished result when I started spinning the yarn. All I knew was that I wanted to make a knit sleeve jacket. It’s here now and I love it.
The early summer light
There is a spot near our house that turns magic for around fifteen minutes every evening during just a couple of weeks in June. The evening sun shines through the trees onto the light green and fresh grass. The light is truly magic. It’s there for such a short time (provided the sky is clear), yet I giggle at the thought of the limits. I can’t get everything the way I want it. Nature decides, just as it should.
Greenery in the early summer light. Photo by Nora Waltin.
Yesterday I went to the spot for a photo shoot. I was back at the time and the spot where I, three years ago, shot a video of me spinning the yarn for the sleeves, catch the light. I brought my tripod and my daughter to the spot and shot a series of photos and a video with the finished jacket A special feeling indeed. Pop over to my Instagram account to see a reel from the photo session.
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.
Myyoutube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
I have a facebook pagewhere I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden!by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
I get out in the fresh morning air to dig my hands into the soil at our community garden allotment. In the evening I sit down with an embroidery. It occurs to me that these seemingly different creative outlets do have a common ground. Today I will guide you through stitches and garden beds.
Come what May
May is a hectic time in the garden beds – the window sill is filled to the brim with pregerminated plants looking towards the garden with longing in their buds, waiting to come out. To make room for them in the pallet collar greenhouses just outside the front door I need to find a spot in the garden beds for the plants already in the greenhouses. The plants need to go in the right quarter of the crop rotation and with the proper companion plants. It’s a giant puzzle with aesthetics, context and function to consider.
Baby kale plants accompanied by tiny Cosmos. Slugs have already started to nibble at the leaves. Imagine floral abundance and bombast in a month or two!
I plant, take a few steps back to imagine colours, height, shapes and space a couple of months from now, coming in closer to add another plant. Back and forth, trying to imagine all the parameters, worrying about plants that haven’t germinated yet or the absence of rain. Taking into account trees and shadows, garden paths and soil depth.
Flowers fit for a queen
I remove the lace curtain from atop the kale patch
and look at the plants I have just snuggled down in the soil.
The pointy and dark black kale leaves with almost burgundy undersides,
the light green rounded brussel sprout leaves with a matte finish.
All plants only three apples high at the moment,
but in a month or two considerably taller.
I imagine the bubbly black kale,
tall and mighty, looking out over the garden like a queen at her subjects.
Yes, she is the queen of all the lands.
I close my eyes and see the brussel sprouts holding on to the stem,
tightly, tightly,
top leaves sprouting out above like tufts of hair.
Flowers! The kale needs flowers, something fit for a queen.
Marigolds, certainly, brightly orange in the sun.
A nasturtium or two, winding their way between the stems.
And cosmos, sweet cosmos with their pink flowers
almost floating on top of the dill-like greenery,
moving softly, majestically in the breeze.
Fit for a queen indeed.
I open my eyes and tuck the plants back in under the lace curtain,
heart singing of gardening joy.
Afternoon bliss
At noon the sun becomes too strong. I wave the allotment goodbye and go inside. I tell myself it’s enough for today, but I still get back a few hours later when the garden is cooler, looking against my better judgement to see if any plants have grown or germinated while I have been gone. They usually haven’t.
I stay for a while, enjoying the stillness of the afternoon. Having my hands in the soil is a joy. I feel the earth in my hands, see the busy workers in the soil and smile at the sweet sprouts as I imagine them all grown up and ready to harvest in August.
Evening stitches
In the evening I work on a påsöm embroidery. I have the main shapes all finished and need to embellish with greenery, small flowers and extra sparkle, fill out the empty spaces and find harmony in colour, shape and distribution. I stitch for a while, put the project down, take a few steps back to imagine the finished result.
Stitch by stitch, petal by petal I grow my flower bed with yarn.
Just as I am ready to walk away I see something in the corner of my eye, a shape for an empty patch. I can’t help myself, draw the shape onto the fabric and start stitching again. Just one more leaf.
Plentifully green
Flowers all set, in pinks, whites, ruby and deep purple.
now to add greens.
I want overwhelm, abundance,
stitches so plentiful there is no room for a single more.
Stitch by stitch I fill in the blanks,
add leaves to every naked stem,
sneak in a daisy or two.
I stitch to the very last piece of the wool.
I back away to see the entirety,
come back close to add another leaf.
Details and whole in a sweet dance,
choreographed by colour, texture and shape.
With needle in hand
I grow a flower bed with yarn.
Parallel creative processes
Creating an embroidery is not that different from creating a vegetable garden. As I work with these two processes at the same time, imagining a result I can’t really predict, I realize they are in some way part of the same process; of wholeness and details, context and creativity. I have gone through these processes before, just not at the same time.
It still needs lots of greenery, but it’s getting there!
I can feel the neural pathways from the two processes come closer to each other and suddenly wave; ”Hi! Fancy meeting you here, let’s flow together!”. And they do, side by side, diverging and converging, all at their own pleasure. The power of plants and stitches suddenly walk together in a new pathway, discovering new perspectives and aesthetic connections between beds and embroideries, plants and stitches, together.
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.
Myyoutube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
I have a facebook pagewhere I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden!by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Last weekend I decided to process my 2022 flax harvest. Flax processing is always more laborious than I tend to remember it. Lucky me I had already broken and scutched it, back in September. Join me for some spring hackling!
As I was watching my 2023 flax babies sprout the other day, my thoughts went to my 2022 harvest. To save workload and storing space I had already broken and scutched the harvest from my two flax beds, so I just had to run it through the rough and fine hackles.
I broke and scutched the 2022 flax harvest in September. Scutched flax to the right.
Processing flax takes time and energy.
Processing flax takes time and energy.
Processing flax takes time and energy.
Spring hackling
Now I should remember for next time, shouldn’t I? Because there is no “just” in flax processing. There is always time, hard work and bloodshed involved. Still, having the flax already broken and scutched back in September was a sweet gift to myself now, eight months later. When I harvested the flax I also divided it into qualities – the edge plants (thick plants and rough fibers) in one bundle and the rest in separate bundnes according to fineness and length.
Rough hackling
I have two antique hackles, one rough and one fine. I let the flax go through both of them. As I rough hackled the flax I could feel and see the difference between the bundles. The finer the flax the shorter the fibers.
Spring hackling! As I rough hackle my flax the boon falls out from the fibers, leaving a smoother bundle.
Rough hackling is always quite straining – the boon (the pieces of cellulose that are made up the core of the plant and were broken in the first stage of processing) gets stuck between the fibers, and so does any underretted fibers. Therefore I need to work to get the flax through the spikes. But it did work and when I looked around me on the floor I was fascinated to see how much boon had fallen out of the fibers and down to the floor.
Fine hackling
When I had gone through all the bundles with the rough hackle, I was ready for the fine hackle. I made sure not to take too thick bundles, to avoid strain on both my muscles and the fibers. Most of the boon and underretted fibers were out by now, but the fine hackling further aligns the fibers and removes tangles and the little boon that may be left. Provided the flax has been properly retted, of course. I’ll get to that further down.
With the fine hackling I further align the fibers and remove tangles, underreted fibers and remaining boon.
In the fine hackling process I can really see and feel the quality of the flax. Since I had sorted it into qualities from the beginning, the bundles were very even in both length and quality. I was very grateful for having gone through the trouble of sorting the flax back in September.
When all the flax had gone through fine and rough hackles I was totally exhausted. I may have hackled for over two hours – flax and fingers. My hands looked like a mess, totally unfit for the photo shoot I had planned. Let’s take it again, with an addition: Processing flax takes time, energy and skin.
Hackle waste
All through the hackling stages I got lots of waste – for every bundle I had to remove waste from between the hackle spikes once or twice. I ran this waste through both hackles again, to remove the very shortest bits and free the usable tow for a rougher yarn and/or weft. It resulted in a sizable strick of my re-hackled hackle waste.
I re-hackle my hackle waste.
The waste from the hackle waste ended up as mulching under my red currant bushes.
Josefin’s vs Berta’s flax
Last summer I spent a lot of time on the balcony, spinning exquisite antique flax from the Austrian Berta’s flax project. Spinning that was a dream. Working with my own flax harvest now gave me a good idea of what high quality flax should look like – the antique flax was perfectly retted and was very smooth to spin. I realized that, even though my 2022 harvest was the best so far when it comes to length, quality and yield, it was slightly underretted. But I am very proud of the process and the result, and grateful for learning something new on m flax journey every year.
Voilá! My 2022 flax harvest all hackled and ready to spin. Slightly underretted, but still my best yield and quality yet.
My 2021 harvest, though, was a retting disaster – so much was wasted in the hackling due to underrating, I almost cried. But then I reminded myself that this is an experimental flax patch – I do it to learn. Even if I will never come near the quality of the antique flax, I know now that I need to be even more thorough in my retting process.
Lessons for the 2023 retting
Retting is truly vital for the quality of the fiber. Had the flax been properly retted I would have been able to remove more boon in the scutching step and less in the hackling step. It would have given a higher yield and lower waste. It would probably also have been a less straining hackling process for me. I’m certain it wouldn’t have resulted in less bloodshed. To add to my high expectations of my 2023 retting I am thinking about water retting it in a kiddy pool.
Flax chronology
I have grown an experimental flax patch every year since 2014. The first year I had no intention of processing the flax, it was just a bag of seeds I saw and bought. But as August came that year I decided to process it after all. The strick is very short and with the circumference of half a rat’s tail, but still, it’s my very first flax.
My experimental flax patch 2014–2022 (left to right). All stricks from 2021 and 2022 are not in the picture.
Some years were underretted, some years better, but every harvest different from the previous. The difference can be in colour, length, retting or other. It is truly interesting to see the result every year and the difference between the harvests. I do like to think that I have improved since I started.
Flax summer of 2023
Every year’s flax harvest i have placed in a paper bag. I have been practicing and procrastinating, waiting to gather enough courage and flax spinning skills to deserve to spin it. In the meantime I have spun commercially prepared flax. Last year, when I spun the Austrian flax I realized the difference and the amazing quality in the Austrian antique flax.
This summer my plan is to spin my own flax, for the very first time. Very exciting and a little scary. I will make separate yarns from each harvest (perhaps not the 2014 harvest) and perhaps weave something where the difference shows. I think the time has come now, I do deserve to spin my own flax harvest. Before I do I will rehackle it all and brush it with my flax brush. You can see a video where I rehackle and brush old flax here.
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.
Myyoutube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
I have a facebook pagewhere I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden!by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Earlier this week I shot, edited, transcibed and captioned what I call a video postcard – a simple and straightforward video greeting from me where I talk about a project I am working on. I create the postcards for my patrons.
If you want to get my video postcards you are welcome to become a patron on patreon.com.
I made my first video postcard a couple of years ago when I was on holiday in Abisko with my family. I talked about the area and the vast landscape in the northernmost part of Sweden and the middle of Sápmi.
A compelling format
That first video postcard was just a spontaneous greeting. I did enjoy the format and decided I would do it as a regular thing, just saying hello to my patrons once a month. It gives me a more personal connection to a smaller group of readers than I can provide in my public videos.
In the March 2022 patron postcard I start weaving a rya Beach pad for my husband’s 50th birthday (video screen shot).
I create my video postcards as a perk for my patrons. They have chosen to support me financially because they enjoy what I do. By the monthly fee they support me with, they play an important role in helping me keep my free stuff free for those who can’t pay. This way a large part of what I publish is free and accessible for a larger audience; this blog, my youtube videos, webinars and a lot of the courses, challenges and lectures in my online spinning school.
Cutting down the rya warp in the Weaving room in the June 2022 patron postcard (video screen shot).
Relaxed
The video postcards are always very simple and unpretentious. To keep them as simple as possible I don’t use a script and I usually shoot the video in one take and with a minimum of editing. I allow these videos to be as natural and low tech as possible. I want to enjoy making them and not see them as a burden. It’s very liberating to make these videos totally unscripted for a group of people that is as nerdy as I am, very differently from how I would approach a public youtube video.
In the August 2022 patron postcard I am in Austria, pointing out Schafberg/Sheep Mountain (video screen shot).
Sneak peeks and deep dives
Sometimes I make the postcards as a sneak peek into something I blog about later, sometimes I dive deeper into something I write about. Other times it’s just a simple greeting from a place I am visiting. Every postcard is a sincere thank you for the support I get from my patrons.
An improvised camera setup for a weaving moment for the October 2022 patron postcard. Photo by Dan Waltin.
Fresh from the editing room
The video postcard I made this week was about a project I have been working on for several years now and that is almost finished. Two shots in different angles, a bit of editing, transcribing the narration (this takes time, though) and captioning.
In the May 2023 patron postcard I show some påsöm embroidery on my two-end knitted sleeves.
Just to give you a glimpse of what a video postcard can look like, I will share one of them with you. This one is from July 2022 at Sätergläntan where I talk about my course A spindle a day. Enjoy!
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.
Myyoutube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
I have a facebook pagewhere I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden!by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
