A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post about blending rya wool and adult mohair to get the characteristics I needed for a sock yarn. Today I will share my adventurous journey of spinning that sock yarn.
When I had achieved the blending result I was after I combed the blend into strong and silky roving. I spun the roving worsted for extra shine and strength. A sock yarn needs to be durable in all directions and I decided to spin a cable yarn.
Cable ply
A cable yarn generally consists of four Z-spun singles. They are then plied into two balanced S-plied 2-plied yarns. After that you S-ply the yarns again with just as much ply as in the first ply. The 2-plies are now very overplied. In the final step you ply the overplied 2-plies Z into a cable yarn that contains all the four singles. The difficulty is to get to that magic cable ply where the fibers align in the direction of the yarn and create one balanced yarn unit.
An even, cable plied, strong and shiny sock…string.
Sock string
The problem was that the beautiful yarn I had created was basically string. There was no softness, no elasticity, no way near what I would wear next to even the roughest skin on the soles of my feet. It had also been quite exhausting to spin. The fibers were fighting me and I needed to keep my fingers quite tensed during the drafting.
A sock string swatch knit on 2 mm needles. The yarn split and resulted in a flat swatch with the texture and flexibility of suede.
Still I knitted a swatch from my sock string. If nothing else, I figured I at least would have the opportunity to learn something. The sock string was dreadful to knit with. It was very dense and a struggle to work around the needles. Also, the needle kept finding its way in between the 2-plies and splitting the yarn, which resulted in a flat (as opposed to rounded) yarn in the swatch. I couldn’t live like this.
So why am I writing about a disatrous sock string and a leathery swatch? Well, I do have a point. I always tell my students that their mistakes are maps of what they have learned. I consider myself just as much a student as my own students and in this string adventure I have learned a lot that I have put to use in my second try. And the leathery swatch is my map.
A second try
Back to square 1. I needed a preparation and spinning technique that would result in a softer yarn without taking the strength away. I still wanted a sock yarn that would last. So I decided to change the preparation technique, the drafting technique and the spinning direction. The spinning technique (a cable plied yarn) and thickness would stay as much as possible the same.
I loaded the combs with the blend with no consideration of which staple end was where.
I teased the wool with the combs like I normally would when combing
I pulled the teased wool right off the combs, perpendicular to the direction of the tines.
The resulting cloud was now teased and the mohair, rya outercoat and rya undercoat well separated. I then carded the teased blend into rolags and spun the singles woolen. All to bring some softness and air into my yarn.
Three stages of fiber preparation of my sock yarn: Blended rya and mohair locks, the teased blend and carded rolags.
Compared to combing for the sock string, carding resulted in far less waste. In the combing process I had to leave a lot of the shortest fibers since they would make the worsted spinning more difficult. In a carded preparation I could keep more of the shortest fibers. They would also add more softness to the resulting yarn.
Carding long fibers
But can you really card fibers this long without disaster? Wouldn’t the long fibers just double around themselves in the rolag and create a tangled mess? Well, they would if they were
alone.
My sock yarn consists of long rya outercoat fibers (left), medium and short rya undercoat fibers (middle) and adult mohair (right). The combination of lengths makes the blend spinnable after carding.
When I card fibers of this length (in this case around 20 cm) I always make sure they are accompanied by shorter fibers. In a combination of short, medium and long fibers the fibers sort of marry each other and create an airy rolag. A dual coat therefore usually works well carding since there are different lengths in the staples. Combining three different lengths of different breeds would also work fine. In my sock yarn I use a dual coat with lengths between 7 and 20 cm and mohair of around 12 cm. The longest fibers will double around the rolag, but I don’t see that as a problem since there are so many other lengths that won’t.
A new direction
Since I had had the experience of splitting yarn I also changed the direction – I
spun the singles S,
2-plied Z,
plied again Z and
cable plied S.
1: Singles S
2: 2-plied balanced Z
3: 2-plied overplied Z
4: Cable plied balanced S
Steps 1, 2, 3 and 4 of a cable yarn.
This yarn was way more comfortable to spin. I could relax my hands and enjoy the spinning, which, to me, is the whole point.
Even though I am fully capable of spinning in both directions when I spin with spindles, I haven’t changed the direction very much on my spinning wheel. Habits are obviously very easy to form. Changing the direction when I spun the singles was a challenge and puzzled me in the beginning, but after a while I got the hang of it. I could be bold and switch the orifice hand and fiber hand too, but I haven’t been that adventurous yet.
I slip
The spinning was far from easy to manage, though. Mohair is extremely slippery. The smallest part of uneven blending could quickly result in a rush through my fingers in lightning speed. I needed to truly feel every millimeter of the wool in my rolag to be able to be constantly prepared for changes in my grip and drafting.
Swatching
The resulting yarn was softer and a lot more pleasing to handle. It didn’t split when I knit my swatch. I am very happy with this lesson. I remember reading about someone who had changed the direction of a cable yarn just because she experienced yarn splitting when she knit. So this was in the back of my head when I spun the sock string. But, obviously, my brain doesn’t realize that until I actually and physically feel it when I spin. Not until I see and feel the result I understand why I had been told not to go that way. And I am thankful for being able to learn and understand through trial and error.
A sock yarn swatch knit on 2.5 mm needles. The yarn stayed together and resulted in a flexible swatch that I definitely can see feet thriving in.
I have plans to dye the yarn in a few different colours. With one kilo of rya/mohair blend I should be able to knit a few pairs of socks.
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.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
There are three wool breeds in Sweden – breeds where wool is an important part of the breed standards. I have covered two of these (finull sheep and Jämtland sheep) in previous posts and today I present the third: Rya sheep. In this seventh part of my breed study of Swedish sheep breeds from the spinner’s perspective I will share my experience with Rya wool. Previous posts have been about Gotland wool, Gute wool, Dalapäls wool, Värmland wool, Jämtland wool and finull wool.
This Saturday, December 12th at 5 pm CET I will host a freelive breed study webinar on Swedish rya wool! I will share my experiences with the wool from a spinner’s perspective.
A background
The word rya refers to three different things – a textile, a wool type and a sheep breed. These are all connected. The word rya is believed to be connected to ragg (coarse hair, compare to raggsocka, a sock with added goat’s hair for extra strength) and related to the English word Rug. The word rya thus refers to a textile with a fur-like side, the pile.
The rya breed as we know it today was bred during the 20th century while the textile has been made since at least the 14th century. To be able to tell you about the rya breed I need to start at the textile.
Rya as a texile
Many of you may have come across rya rugs – woven rugs with looped knots making up a pile. These were very popular to make during the 1970’s. They have a far longer history than that, though, and used mainly for other purposes.
From the oldest sources known today it is evident that the rya has been used in the bed for warmth. Because of its lightness compared to animal skins it has been used as a more lightweight alternative to these. The first mention of a rya is in a regulation from 1420 for bed equipment for nuns in the Vadstena convent: They shall wear a kirtle of white wadmal. In addition to that a rya. And a sheep skin for the winter” (my translation). These regulations may very well have been used already in the 14th century.
Rya from Digitaltmuseum.se. Warp and weft in red and natural white S-plied yarn. Ghiordes knots in shiny white z-plied yarn. The knots are made in different directions in the two halves of the rya and don’t show on the smooth side.
Many ryas have been registered in inventories from mansions and castles, the oldest one from 1444. This also speaks for the value of these textiles. Ryas have been used in trading in exchange for important groceries like hop and salt. During the 17th century ryas spread to social clusters outside the nobilities.
Originally the rya was used with the pile side down and the smooth side up. Many of the oldest finds have a plain knot side – perhaps with some decorative elements at the top to fold over – and a more elaborated smooth side. During the late 17th and early 18th centuries many ryas were shifted – the fur side was facing up and was more decorated for a more fancy bed spread.
Searching for the Rya wool type
The earlier ryas had a remarkable shine, whereas the ryas from the time of the industrial revolution had more matte wool with a lower quality. The spinning mills were not adapted to the Scandinavian double coated (short-tailed) land races. Fat-tailed sheep with shorter wool were imported to suit the industry. Thereby the landraces became less common.
During the national romantic era in the late 19th century there was an increased interest in traditional techniques and artifacts. Textile experts were fascinated by the shine in the old ryas, a shine they couldn’t find in contemporary sheep in Sweden. They gathered that there would probably be sheep with this wool type left in Sweden. They searched and found. Dalapäls sheep was one of the breeds that became the starting point of saving the rya wool type.
Staples from five different rya sheep. Second from right from a lamb, the rest from ewes. the three leftmost are whole-year fleeces from the same flock. The two rightmost staples are the most typical rya staple types – long and shiny with almost no crimp.
Economic interests were more important than saving old landraces, though, and focus was again directed towards more undercoat and more meat. Wool was not a part of the breed standards. In 1978 the Rya sheep organization was founded to protect the Swedish landrace the Rya sheep and the wool quality got a prominent position in the breed standard.
So to the wool type rya. Rya as a wool type has long and shiny outercoat and soft undercoat, with almost no crimp. The outercoat to undercoat ratio is between 60/40 and 50/50. Many other sheep breeds in Sweden, especially the heritage breeds, can have rya type wool, partly or over the whole body. The term rya type wool is thus a way to describe the staple type and distribution of undercoat and outercoat within that staple.
Rya sheep
The sheep that had been developed to save the old landrace characteristics with the long, strong and shiny wool was thus called Rya sheep, and had rya type wool to resemble the wool used in the old rya textiles.
Rya sheep Beppelina with whole-year fleece, just before she was shorn and the fleece sent to me. Photo by Ann Arvidson
Rya sheep are medium-sized – rams weigh 70–100 kilos and ewes 60–80 kilos. Face and legs are wool free and the wool is uniform over the body of the sheep. The wool can be white, black, brown or grey. Rya sheep are skilled in grazing in rugged terrain. In 2019 there were 570 breeding ewes in 60 flocks in Sweden. According to the breeding goals the wool should be uniform over the body, strong and shiny and no less than 15 cm at 120 days of age and with 0–3 crimps per 5 cm.
Rya wool
As discussed in the paragraphs above, Rya wool was saved and developed to rescue the strong and shiny wool type that had been used in the old rya textiles. Rya wool is thus long, strong and shiny. It also has soft undercoat. Since the breed comes from old landraces there are still rooing tendencies – some individuals shed their fleece in the spring.
White, shiny and strong rya wool in my saigkorg (Gotland fir/juniper basket made for carded wool). Unwashed to the left, washed (water only) to the right. This fleece won a silver medal in the rya section of the 2020 fleece championships.
The outercoat to undercoat ratio is between 60/40 and 50/50. The outercoat is very strong and shiny and the undercoat soft and also quite shiny. Eventhough rya wool is quite homogenous over the body of the sheep, the dual coat makes the wool very versatile. As a hand spinner you can choose to spin undercoat and outercoat together or separated. If you consider the fineness of lamb’s wool and the strength of wool from ewes you have an even wider spectrum of qualities to play with.
The wool characteristics that I want to focus on when I spin rya wool is the exceptional shine, the amazing strength and the versatility over the fiber types and of wool from both ewes and lambs.
Preparing and spinning
At the moment I have a few rya fleeces in my stash – ewe’s and lamb’s wool in white, grey, brown(s) and black. Some of them are quite traditional rya fleeces with the long, strong and shiny staples. But four of them (one fleece and samples from three other sheep in the same flock) are a bit different. They have some crimp and finer fibers. They have a full year’s growth and have started to shed.
Fleece samples from the rya sheep Alva, Lina, Beppelina and Bertil (ram).
Combing and worsted spinning
This summer I spent many walks together with the outercoat from this quartet and a suspended spindle. I had separated the coats with stationery combs and set the undercoat aside. I combed the outercoat and made bird’s nests.
The outer coat from the whole-year’s shearing of the rya ewe Beppelina, spun worsted on a suspended spindle.
This whole year’s fiber is longer than any wool I have ever worked with before, around 30 cm. During the summer I generally spin on spindles, but even in the winter I think I would have preferred to spin this length on a suspended spindle. With the spindle I can control the speed and the intake in a way I think would have been difficult on a spinning wheel with fibers this long.
Combed whole year’s outer coat from the rya ewe Lina and the rya ram Bertil. Spun on a suspended spindle.
These shiny and fiercely strong yarns make excellent warp yarn. One day I will spin singles warp yarn, but I am not there yet. In the mean time I will spin 2-plied warp yarns.
Carding and woolen spun
The undercoat I had set aside from the combing resulted in a lovely knitting yarn. I carded the separated undercoat fibers into rolags and spun with English long draw on a spinning wheel and 2-plied. I am thinking stranded colourwork knitting for this quartet.
Undercoat woolen spun from hand carded rolags of the rya sheep Alva, Beppelina, Lina and Bertil.
Keeping it all together
On my wool journey of 2019 I experimented with a sock yarn where I mixed 60 per cent rya wool with 40 per cent adult mohair. At the 2019 fleece championships I bought a gold medalist rya fleece and a bag of adult mohair for my sock yarn project. I try to keep a strict queue in my fleece stash and I have just started spinning this yarn. I have blended it with adult mohair and spun it woolen as a cabled yarn.
Gold medalist rya lamb’s fleece from the 2019 fleece championships (left), blended with adult mohair for a strong cabled sock yarn (right).
Perhaps I will play with some dyeing for striped socks. I am not a big sock knitter, but this project might change my opinion on sock knitting.
A rya rya yarn
Another project I have in my mind is a yarn for rya knots in rya yarn. I may not be able to make a whole bed cover, but I could weave something smaller, perhaps a foot rug for the bed. I have woven chair pads with rya knots, but only with stashed handspun and not in rya wool.
A yarn for rya knots is spun in its entirety with both undercoat and outercoat and 2-plied. Some of the findings have a lot of twist – around 11 rounds per centimeter. Saved rya textiles have been both Z-plied and S-plied. I have asked several textile experts about how the wool for the rya textiles in the museum collections were prepared and spun, but there doesn’t seem to be any clear information about this.
Since a textile with rya knots tends to get quite heavy my plan is to card it and spin it woolen. Since I have no plans of making a floor rug out of it there is no need for super strong worsted yarn.
Use
As I wrote earlier rya wool has a wide variety of uses since you can use it together or separated and find different qualities in lamb’s wool and adult wool. I have already shared some ideas of what I want to do with the fleeces I have – socks blended with adult mohair, yarn for rya knots, stranded knitting with undercoat yarn and outercoat warp yarn.
A lucet cord from Bertil’s outercoat made a lovely pendant cord. Combed and worsted spun on a suspended spindle.
I played with my lucet to make a cord for an ammonite pendant I bought myself a while ago. I made it with the dark brown worsted spun outercoat from Bertil the ram. The cord is very strong and sleek.
Other uses for yarn from rya wool is rugs, tapestries and embroidery. Due to the exceptional shine the wool is very well suited for weaving rugs and is said to get even shinier with wear. Yes, I might spin an embroidery yarn too.
Live webinar!
This This Saturday, December 12th at 5 pm CET I will host a live breed study webinar about Swedish rya wool from a spinner’s perspective. In the webinar I will talk briefly about the breed in Sweden, wool characteristics and how I prepare, spin and use rya wool. I will use rya wool during the webinar and show you glimpses of how I prepare and spin the wool.
Even if you think you will never come across Swedish finull this is still an opportunity to learn more about wool and wool processing in general. The breed study webinar will give you tools to understand different wool types and apply your knowledge to breeds and wool types closer to you.
This is a wonderful chance for me to meet you (in the chat window at least, I won’t be able to see you) and for you to see me live and unedited. The previous live breed study webinars I have done have been great successes. I really look forward to seeing you again in this webinar.
The event has already taken place.
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.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
I’m not very fond of knitting socks. Yet socks are quite essential. I’m definitely not fond of plastic in sock yarn. Yet a strong fiber is quite practical to prevent holes in the socks. Fortunately, there are other strong fibers than plastic. This is the story of a simple blending process that hopefully will result in durable socks in natural materials.
A small scale sample yarn
On my 2019 wool journey I experimented with a sock yarn where I blended rya lamb’s wool and adult mohair. I ended up with a strong 3-ply sock yarn sample. I started out with 6 + 4 grams of fiber, which did help me find a process and a suitable yarn for socks, but in a very small scale.
This is my rya/mohair sock yarn sample that came out of experimentation on the 2019 wool journey.
Scaling up
On the fleece championships that year I bought a gold medal winning rya fleece and a bag of adult mohair to scale up my experiment to real socks. As usual the fleeces went in the back of the fleece queue, but now they’re next in line. This week I started my sock yarn project.
In my small scale experiment I had used 6 grams of rya and 4 grams of mohair. In my upscaled project I have 650 grams of rya and 400 grams of adult mohair which I somehow needed to blend.
Willowing wool is a good way to blend wool.
Many people have seen a video where I willow my wool to open up the locks. This method is also perfect for blending two wool qualities or colours. However, I am not willowing my sock blend. I’m not very keen on sitting outdoors in the wind and temperature of November in Stockholm. Also, I’m afraid the willowing may ruin the lock structure in the staples. Since I will be combing the wool I need the staples to maintain their structure so that I can tell the cut end from the tip end. Therefore I needed to find another way of blending my wool.
Uncling
The fleeces had been somewhat compressed in the sofa bed storage and the staples were clinging to one another. So the first step was simply to separate them. Willowing would have been perfect for this task too, but still, not in November. Instead I sat down and started to pick and separate the locks by hand in both fleeces. This gave me the opportunity to look and feel through the fleeces and get to know their characteristics better, literally staple by staple.
Gold medalist rya lamb’s wool (left) and super strong adult mohair (right).
The rya fleece was open and airy with long, silky and fine staples. They were also easy to separate from each other. The mohair staples on the other hand were compact in themselves and somewhat reluctant to opening up. The fibers in each staple seemed to cling to each other. The staples were quite easy to separate from each other though, since I had managed to wash a lot of the wax away.
I picked the locks by hand to make the blending of the mohair and rya fleeces easier.
The difference in willingness to separate in the different fleeces is something I need to keep in mind for when I process and spin the wool since it can influence how evenly the wool drafts when I spin. But first things first.
Let’s make Lasagne!
When I had gone through both of the fleeces and separated the staples it was time to start blending them. I did it the simplest way I could think of – I divided the fleeces in 6 piles each. I figured the smaller units of wool I could blend the more even the blend would be.
6 + 6 piles of rya and mohair, layered into a lasagne and then hand whisked.
When I had my 6 + 6 rya and mohair piles I started building a lasagne by layering the piles one by one in a basket – one layer of rya and one layer of mohair until I was out of piles. After that I turned the basket upside down on the floor, dug my hands into the blended pile and whisked the whole arrangement around.
Combing
The final part of the blending was the actual combing. From my thorough lasagne blending technique I knew the two kinds of fiber were reasonably evenly distributed. Therefore I simply grabbed a handful of the blend and started combing. Later I decided to weigh each handful to make sure the rovings would be the same weight. This also eliminated my usual habit of over loading the comb.
8 grams of rya and mohair locks on my medium comb, ready to be turned into sweet roving.
From the hand picking I had learned that the rya and mohair staples were very different. The dual coat rya locks were easy to separate and quite airy while the mohair locks were dense and quite reluctant to let go. With this in mind I made sure to make enough passes to thoroughly separate the fibers. The fleeces have in the blend formed a new togetherness with new characteristics that I need to consider when I work with the preparation and spinning.
I landed in five passes, planking, and then another three passes (you can read more about this combing technique in an earlier post about combing different fiber lengths). After the final three passes I dizzed the roving and got myself a lovely bird’s nest.
A 5 gram rya/mohair bird’s nest.
I am very happy with the result. The fibers are evenly distributed both in and between the rovings. Nothing clings anymore and I can draft easily. I have finished a first test skein and a second improved skein. The spinning process and resulting yarn however, is a matter for another blog 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.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
A couple of years ago I made a pair of socks in nalbinding. I made them striped in two colours and fulled them for extra strength and durability. I have loved them and worn them a lot during the years, which has resulted in holes. Today it is mending time.
Mending to reinforce
Yesterday I had a whole day of zoom lectures in a university course I’m taking in my day job. I decided to use the screen time for mending socks. Use in sort of a reciprocal way – I use the lecture to mend socks and the sock mending to reinforce (literally!) what I hear. It is like the lecture sets itself in the yarn and is woven into the socks, stitch by stitch.
I actually had a whole different blog post planned, but this one just bubbled up as I was sitting at the morning lectures and now I suddenly have mended socks. Sometimes a blog post just jumps at you and makes some extra blogging and crafting sense. This was such a time.
Old socks with new holes
Nalbinding is a very old technique where you basically sew, or rather knot, the yarn around the thumb and in different ways over and under the thumb thread. The resulting fabric becomes very strong since A: the threads go over and under each other and B: you can’t pick a thread and unravel it. Oh, well, I’ll show you instead:
Nalbinding the Dalby stitch.
When I nalbind I always full it to make it even stronger, and I did for these socks too. But sooner or later there will be holes from wearing. If I remember correctly, I think I have mended these socks once before, under the heels, which would be the most logical place for the first holes in socks. I think I did that mending by adding more nalbinding.
The mending scene
The white yarn in the socks is a rya/finull cross which is quite strong. Originally I spun it as a warp yarn for a blanket. It is 2-plied and a sport weight-ish yarn. The dark grey yarn is superfine Shetland wool I think – a fingering weight 2-ply yarn that I spun for something else, I don’t remember what. So the fibers in the dark grey are finer and the yarn thinner than the white yarn. And neither of the yarns was originally spun for socks.
Photo by Dan Waltin
Photo by Dan Waltin
The nalbinding socks when they were just finished.
As I decided today was mending day I found some of the original white yarn. I decided to use it for all the holes, both grey and white. This resulted in some sort of semi-visual mending. If you count the soles of the feet as visual, that is.
Looking at where these new holes are gives me some clues to how my feet work and how the yarns in the socks work. On both feet the holes are on the inner side of the heels. This is an area with lots of abrasion and despite the strong white yarn and the strong technique plus fulling the holes are a fact. I had made the previous (nalbinding) mending on the bottom of the heels.
Holes in socks and a whole day with zoom lectures. What are you gonna do?
There were also holes on the dark grey stripes on the inner sides of the balls of the feet. This tells me that the dark yarn is weaker than the white yarn (which I knew of course) and that there is a lot of abrasion on that part of my feet. I have high arches. On the quite slim areas of the soles of my feet that do touch the ground, the pressure is quite high. This is something I make mental notes of for future sock projects.
I mend
I decided to weave a new fabric over the holes. I’m sure there is a fancy name for this kind of mending, I just haven’t learned it yet. Or is it just called darning?
After I have sewn a running stitch around the hole I sew long stitches across it as a “warp” and then weave the weft up-down up-down in a simple tabby weave to make a new fabric over the hole.
Anyway, I started by sewing a running stitch around the hole or worn part. The running stitch works as a strengthener of the edges of the darning and as a marker of where the hole is. In the next step I made long stitches across the hole, the warp if you will. I started and finished the warp threads on the outside of the running stitch border. In the final step I wove a tabby weave through the warp with a darning needle and fastened the thread.
I sew a running stitch (blue) around the hole (black) and sew long “warp” threads across the hole (horizontal red) and then weave the weft (vertical red) with the darning needle up-down up-down through the warp into a tabby weave.
I was very happy with the result. It just feels like such a pity that my pretty mending is on the soles of the feet where no one can see them!
Symmetric wear on my socks has been mended with tabby weave darning.
Extra reinforcement
In one of the socks I found a flat piece of felted wool that must have been pulled out of the fabric by my sweaty feet (sorry for the perhaps too illustrative explanation, but I do have a point). I decided to take advantage of the felted patch and place it on the inside of the heel mending as an extra strengthener for a spot on the socks with lots of abrasion. After all, that is probably where the wool on the loose came from in the first place!
Pretty woven squares on my previously naked heels.
A happy mending
I have done this kind of mending before, but never this organized and geometrical. It must have been because I saw the experience as blog worthy and made an effort to do it properly for you. So thank you for helping me make a pretty mending!
Suddenly I feel the urge to flaunt my mended socks. Have you ever found yourself wanting to flaunt your mending? I’m sure you have. A mending is a sign of love and tribute to something you hold dear, an opportunity to give back to the sock that has kept your feet protected and warm for so long. An anthem for cherished socks.
As you can see from the shape of my feet I have impressive bunions on the insides of my feet. I can see that the dark grey stripes are thinning on these parts, so they will be my next area to mend. I will keep my mending radar turned on for the next lecture.
My socks are mended and my feet are ready for new and wooly adventures.
By lunch I had finished my sock mending. Lucky for me I had prepared a spindle for the afternoon lectures! For more mending adventures, read my portrait of a sweater post. And oh, for an excellent book on mending, get Mend and patch by Kerstin Neumüller. It is available in several languages.
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.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Many spinners ask me where I find the fleeces I work with. I live just outside the Stockholm city center and there aren’t many flocks around here. Today I will share with you how I found my first fleeces and give you a few tips of what you can do in your pursuit of finding a fleece.
When I first started spinning I took a spinning class twice a month at a city sheep farm. I bought my first fleece on the first spinning lesson. After that I have bought several fleeces from the farm. Visitors can buy fleece in the sheep barn all year round. The head shepherdess basically know all the sheep by smelling it. The fleeces come individually packed in paper bags with the sheep’s name on it. I can reach the farm with the commuter train and investigate the fleece on the hoof.
But finding a fleece isn’t always easy. Many people don’t have sheep close to them and don’t know where to start. Some are also worried that they will get bad fleece. In this post I won’t go into what to look for in a fleece, but with the methods I use I make sure, or as sure as I can, that I find the people who can provide good quality fleece.
The soul behind the fleece
When I look for a fleece I try to stay as close to the source as I can. Preferably on a level of knowing the name of the sheep. I keep a list of shepherdesses and I always look for potential additions to that list. You can see it as sort of a fleece networking.
The key element for me is connecting with sheep owners. Having a connection with a shepherdess gives me an understanding of their work and the day-to-day lives of the sheep. I try to find the soul behind the fleece. Do the shepherdesses represent what I want from a fleece? In the conversation I also get to explain what I look for as a spinner.
The key to a breed
One example is Lena. She is a Gute shepherdess, spinning teacher and weaver and has been a judge at many spinning competitions. I didn’t know much about Gute sheep, but since I know her work I knew that there must be something in the Gute fleece that attracts her as a spinner. I knew that she would be able to get me a Gute fleece of high quality. And I was right, I got a lovely Gute fleece that I have used for many classes to show the diversity of a primitive breed. And through that many of my students have grown fond of the breed too.
Gute wool from one individual. The sheep has long and strong overcoat, fine undercoat and kemp over the whole body, but to varying degrees.
In the Gute case I didn’t know much about the Gute breed, but I knew about Lena and her knowledge and experience. That was enough for me to try the breed.
Connect with knowledge
Another example is Ann who has a small flock of Rya sheep. She is also one of the founders of a Swedish online spinning forum and very generous with her knowledge and encouragement. She is also a very experienced spinner. Someone posted a picture of Ann’s sheep and I knew I wanted to try the wool from her sheep. I had a few rya fleeces before, but I really wanted to try the fleece from Ann’s sheep since she knew so much about them.
Fleece samples from the rya ewes Alva, Lina and Beppelina and Bertil the ram. I chose Beppelina (bottom left).
Ann sent me very generous samples of fleece from her four sheep and I got to pick the one I preferred, which wasn’t easy – they were all lovely. I had follow-up questions and Ann, with her long experience with fiber animals, could give me very detailed descriptions of her line of the breed and the individual sheep in her flock. She also sent me pictures of the sheep. I picked one and she sent me the rest of that fleece.
Handling the fleece from Ann’s flock has taught me a lot of the diversity within a breed, especially since rya is one of the three Swedish breeds that are bred for the wool.
Fleece feedback: Åsen fleece
My third example here is Ylva. I met her on the Fleece championships of 2019. As far as I know she didn’t have a competing fleece, but she was at the event selling her Åsen fleeces. I talked to her for a bit, asked her about the breed that I didn’t know very much about. I ended up buying one of her fleeces. In the fleece bag was a piece of paper with carefully made notes of the number of the sheep, when she was born, when she was shorn, some of the characteristics of the fleece and the weight.
I spun a lovely skein from the Åsen fleece and sent to Sara Wolf for the book Knit (spin) Sweden. Then I brought the fleece to one of my classes. The first fleece we ran out of was Ylva’s Åsen fleece. All the students loved carding and spinning the Åsen wool. It was open and airy and had just the right combination of fluffy undercoat and strong outercoat to make the draft nice and slow. Of course I told Ylva about this and she was very pleased that we had enjoyed the fleece from her sheep.
Lovely Åsen wool from an experienced shepherdess.
More Åsen fleece
I met Ylva at another fleece event and bought a very fine Åsen fleece from her, totally different from the first fleece I bought. I hadn’t planned on buying Åsen fleece, but since I knew she was serious about wool quality I was more than happy to buy from her.
The fleece I got had long white locks with black tips. When I got home I discovered that the tips broke in the join between the black tips and the white growth when I tugged the staples lightly. The fibers beneath the breakage was still soft and lovely. Since I had talked to Ylva I knew she was very dedicated and serious about the wool quality of her sheep. I knew this must have been an unlucky exception in her flock. I asked her what she thought was the reason behind the breakage in the tips. She told me that the lamb had been fathered by a new ram that obviously had some bad fleece genes. She was very grateful for my feedback and decided not to use that lamb for further breeding (the ram had already moved on to greener pastures).
Setbacks
I have bought a lot of fleece through the years and I figure I have quite a good sense of what to look for. But I do make mistakes. The good thing about that is that I learn a lot from them. Not so much due to bad quality, but in realizing that this wasn’t for me. Most of the mistakes have actually been pre-processed wool – quite early I learned that I want to get to know the wool from the start, from that dirty, poopy newly shorn fleece. It has also been about a breed that I didn’t really get along with.
Fleece events
A wonderful opportunity for finding a fleece is a fleece event, like a fleece competition, a wool fair or a wool festival. One of the most important fleece shows for me is the Swedish fleece championships. At this event the visitors can look at and fondle all the fleeces that have entered the competition, watch the prize ceremony and take part in the fleece auction afterwards.
Over 50 fleeces competed in the 2019 fleece championships!
A lot of the visitors are shepherdesses that either sell their fleeces at the event and/or have one or more fleeces in the competition. I do several things at this kind of event to find fleeces:
The first thing I do is to go through the fleeces in the competition. I look at them, fondle them of course and make mental notes of their characteristics and which ones I want to buy.
During the competition I keep track of who gets the medals. I have been a visitor to the championships for the past four years (sadly not this year when it was a no visitor event) and I see a lot of the sheep owners come back and get more medals. These are people I keep track of. They obviously care a lot about the wool quality of their sheep. Some of them even get medals in both the fleece championships and the spinning championships. These shepherdesses are extra interesting to me since they share my perspective as a spinner.
If I win the auctions I have set my sight on I try to connect with the shepherdess who submitted the fleece. I tell them that I love what they do, ask about the name of the sheep and just engage in wooly conversation.
In my course Know your fleece there is a 47 minute video where I go through all the fleeces of the 2019 fleece championships together with my friend Anna.
A finull/rya master
Let me tell you about Margau. On the first fleece championships I visited I fell for a dark grey finull/rya she had submitted. It got a gold medal. She has worked for several years with this particular cross and she does a smashing job of it. On a previous blog post I wrote about another fleece I got from her, also a medalist. Later when I spun it I ran out of fleece. I contacted Margau and got the next shearing of the same sheep.
A gold medalist
Photo by Dan Waltin
Photo by Dan Waltin
The first fleece I got from Margau to the left. In the middle the Margau Beta sweater I knit from the fleece, together with some sari silk. To the right the Selma Margau sweater I knit from another fleece from Margau.
Later, when I wanted a white fleece of the same quality she sent me samples from three sheep that I could choose from. From that fleece I made the Selma Margau sweater pattern.
Getting to know a new breed
On that same first fleece championships I fell for a lovely Dalapäls fleece, that ended up with a silver medal. The shepherdess, Carina, wasn’t at the event, but I texted her. We had a long conversation and she told me about the breed in general and the sheep (Blanka) in particular. I hadn’t come across the dalapäls breed before, but once I had seen Blanka’s shiny fleece I knew this was a special breed.
Long and silky locks of Dalapäls sheep. The locks come from the same shepherdess, Carina, but from different sheep.
Later I also connected with Lena, another Dalapäls shepherdess and I even got to visit her on shearing day. On the course Know your fleece you can see a video where I interview Lena while she shears her sheep.
Fleece queen 1
On the 2019 fleece championships, one of the shepherdesses, Kari, got eight (8) medals for her fleeces. She has several different breeds and a passion for wool and crafting. She wasn’t at the event at the time, but I met her later at another wool event and bought two lovely rya fleeces from her. We chatted for a while and it was so lovely to connect with someone with such a warm passion for her sheep and their wool.
The 2020 seduction of the wool guru, a Swedish Gotland/Leicester/finull fleece.
At the 2020 fleece championships she got another seven medals and I managed to win the auction of one of them, a Swedish Gotland/Leicester/finull cross. The fleece didn’t get a regular medal, but it did get a special award called “The seduction of the wool guru”. The wool guru is Alan Waller, one of the judges and the prize is awarded to a fleece he can’t take his hands and eyes off. And it is indeed a magical fleece – 18 cm staples with 13 cm undercoat, shiny and soft and just mesmerizing.
I had no plans to buy this kind of fleece when I started planning which ones I wanted to buy, but with this award and this shepherdess I couldn’t help myself. I hope I can make this magical fleece justice.
Fleece queen 2
Titti is an experienced shepherdess who has grown up with finull (Swedish finewool) sheep, one of Sweden’s three wool breeds. She won her first fleece championship medal a few years ago and has since then worked with breeding for the fleece and teaching other sheep owners about breeding for fleece. She has kept winning medals for her excellent fleeces year after year and this year I decided to snatch me one. After all, finull is my home fleece, the one I started with nine years ago.
The silver medalist fleece from the finull lamb Nypon (Rose hip).
I won the auction of her silver medalist Nypon (Rose hip) and it is just the yummiest of yum – soft, crimpy and shiny. Lots of finull wool has gone through my fingers over the years, but none with a quality like this one.
If you are a patron I have a treat for you – a short unboxing video where I unbox the three fleeces I bought from the 2020 fleece championships auction. Go to my Patreon page if you want to become a patron.
Nodes
Nodes (I just made the concept up) are what I call people with wool knowledge and lots of connections to shepherdesses. It can be wool handlers/brokers/consultants/classifiers, spinning teachers, fleece show judges, shearers etc. You may not know any of these yourself, but if you search a little you will soon find some that you can contact. Nodes are people whose judgements I trust fully. They have met many sheep farmers and/or had their hands on hundreds, thousands of fleeces and know what to look for.
A wool classifier
One such example is my friend Kia. She has worked for many years as a wool classifier in Norway. Tons of fleeces have gone through her hands and she is extremely knowledgeable about fleece. My first fleece adventure outside the city farm was with the help of Kia. She started a fiber club with rare and endangered Norwegian sheep breeds and I jumped along. In the fiber club she sent out four packages of fleece samples (also some processed fiber) from different Norwegian breeds that were rare or endangered. She also attached information about the breeds and what she thought of them. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to get to know different wool qualities in small batches. I ended up making a Fair Isle vest from most of the yarns I spun from the samples.
Ivy League vest by Eunnie Jang, knit from my handspun Norwegian rare and endangered sheep breeds in 2014. Photo by Dan Waltin
I didn’t know the shepherdesses of these batches, but I got lots of information of the breeds. I trusted Kia through her knowledge and experience of and passion for the breeds.
A wool broker
Another example of a node is Shetland woolbrokers. What Oliver Henry and his fleece crew don’t know about fleece isn’t worth knowing. They handle and grade tons of fleece from sheep farmers across Shetland every day.
A superfine Shetland fleece from the treasure room at Shetland woolbrokers. I bought it in their shop when I visited Shetland wool week back in 2015 with my wool traveling club.
Most of the fleece goes to spinning mills, but they also have a treasure room for hand spinners. This is where the best fleeces go. The first time I was there and got to go to the treasure room, but on several occasions I have got the loveliest fleeces from them via email inquiries. I have simply said: Please get me two superfine fleeces of so and so colour. And by that I have been confident that they will send me high quality fleece.
Finding a fleece
I have been a spinner for nine years and nowadays I have a well tried list of shepherdesses that I have a connection to and nodes that I trust. But I did start from knowing nothing about fleece at all, just like most of us have at some point. If you want to work with fleece but don’t know where to fine one, I have made a list of some ideas where to start.
Checklist for finding a fleece
Start as close to the source as you can. Have you seen sheep in your neighbourhood? Or somewhere you visit every now and then? If you see the sheep owner, start a conversation. Ask about the sheep and what they do with the fleeces.
Are you a member of a spinning guild? If so, see if the other members have sheep of their own or connections with sheep owners.
If you don’t live near sheep you can look in spinning forums – local, regional or national. Browse through the feed and look for people who have bought fleece they are happy with or spinners who own sheep. Perhaps you can find a connection there. Remember to check the forum rules, though. If it is a non-commercial forum you are better off making this kind of connection in a private message.
Do you know of any fleece nodes? Or can you find one? Again, check spinning guilds or spinning forums. Are there names that pop up often, people who seem to know a lot about wool or have a large wool network? This could be shearers, fleece show judges, wool classifiers/sorters/handlers/consultants etc.
Is there a wool agency in your region or country? In Sweden we have Ullförmedlingen, the Swedish wool agency where sheep owners can put their fleeces for sale. The forum has a tagging system so that the seller can give accurate information about the fleeces and the buyer can search for specific information.
Go to wool events, live or online. Talk to sheep owners, ask them about their sheep and try to get an understanding of how they work with their sheep, especially regarding the wool. Also, try to look at the fleeces with someone. Together you can investigate the fleece and get more information than had you looked at it alone.
Look at fleece with a friend. This is my friend Anna and I looking at Värmland wool.
You will find fleece you like and you will develop your own list of people and places to find fleece. Sooner or later you will make mistakes, just like I have. You will learn from your mistakes, perhaps more than from your successes –you will learn what to look for and what to stay away from. A wise friend of mine said:
You don’t have to know to get started, but you need to get started to know.
Embrace your fleece buying mistakes and learn from them on your next fleece hunt.
When you have got a fleece, remember to give feedback to the shepherdess! Show what you spin and what you make. Tell them what is good about the fleece and your suggestions for improvements from your spinner’s perspective. I am sure they will appreciate the feedback and remember you in their next shearing.
Happy spinning!
P.S. I have just published an edited version of the webinar The Hand spinner’s advantage that I streamed live on September 19th, 2020. The webinar is free to watch at my online school.
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.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Sometimes I loose myself in the crafting moment. The senses take over like a force of nature and guide me through my process, sweetly, mindfully. My fingers know what to do and still they experience every movement and every sensation as if for the first time. I had one of those sweet moment the other day while I was warping. So today I give you a warping meditation.
I have just come back from a morning swim in the pale morning sun. It is early November and the trees still have some yellow and red leaves on their branches. Heaps of leaves in all shades of red, yellow and brown are scattered over the ground, inviting, enticing. The musky autumn smells swirl around me, whispering sweet autumnal hymns in my ears.
A warp in waiting
Meanwhile, eight skeins of handspun Gute yarn are waiting in the book shelf. My plan is to weave a loose sett and full the finished fabric into a sturdy wadmal cloth. I decide today is Warping Day. Usually I warp longer projects at the local weaver’s guild, but due to the pandemic I don’t want to put the elderly ladies in the guild at risk. The sun is warm on our terrace and that will be my warping zone.
2-ply Gute yarn, waiting to be put to use.
The whispers of a fleece
As I grab one of the skeins I immediately feel the soft and safe message from the lanolin in the yarn. The smell, the touch and the soft colours take me back to the staples I processed just a few weeks ago. Strong, light and rustic. It also reminds me of the Gute sheep that gave me the wool. I received the gift of wool and it is now my mission to make the strengths of the fleece justice as a textile.
Strong outercoat, soft undercoat and brittle kemp fibers in my 2-ply woolen spun Gute yarn.
I look at the skein in my hand and see the different fiber types – the long and strong outercoat, some fibers finer and some coarser. Soft, soft undercoat in sparkling silvery white. Rough and short kemp fibers that point in a direction of their own choice. I know that a majority of the kemp fibers will fall out of the yarn as I weave, leaving air pockets, making the cloth warmer and softer.
A sunny terrace in November is a splendid substitute for a weaving room.
Warping in the November sun
I bring my tools out to the terrace, secure the warping peg and mount the umbrella swift on the fence. The skein on the swift sparkles in all its glorious shades of grey, turning round and round on my command as I feed the yarn to the hungry warp.
Thread by thread I build the skeleton of the weave in a warping meditation..
A warping meditation
The yarn goes through my hands over and over again, just as it has many times before during sorting, washing, carding and spinning. The strand in my hand leaves a touch of its wooly magic, like a gentle puff of lanolin and sheephood on my fingers. Inch by inch my fingers attentively follow the thread, from the loom, through the slot of the heddle, around the warping peg and back again.
I own this yarn. My hands made it and through the many hours of processing and spinning they know every fiber of it. Yet, it keeps teaching me new things every time I touch it and it will probably keep teaching me through its career as a fabric, on levels I don’t yet know will exist.
Following the warp threads back and forth between the loom and the warping peg makes me present in the moment, like a warping meditation.
Thread by thread I build the frame of the warp, the very skeleton which I will dress, one shuttling after another, with woolen layers. My hands giggle as they touch the surface of this scaffold in the making. As I walk mindfully back and forth with the warp yarn in the shy November sun I remember that the Gute sheep I work with is an outdoor sheep, it stays outdoors all year round. Even the name is an acronym for the very outdooriness of the breed – Gotland outdoor sheep (Gotländskt Utegångsfår). I smile and hope the yarn enjoys being in some way in its natural habitat.
When I have reached the last slot of the heddle I smile at my newborn warp. I wonder what will become of it, how we will work together and what it will teach me next. As I go back inside I thank the sun with its pale rays for their warmth and comfort.
A sun salutation
This time of year I follow the sun – from the gentle sparkles accompanying me on my early morning swim, through the warm morning and mid-day sun by the spinning wheel in the living room and to the afternoon gold-pink-red transformation in my home office.
After a soup lunch I see the loom standing against the book shelf as I leave the kitchen. I can’t help myself and decide to start weaving, just a little bit. The rhythm of dressing the heddle is mesmerizing – Slot, hole, slot, hole all the way to the end. I tie the warp bundles onto the warp beam and feel for irregular tension with my fingers, eyes closed. I lift the heddle and the first shed is born. As new sheds are created between the shuttled weft threads I feel them again – the soft rays, on the side of my face. The sun has rounded the house and reached the office where I weave.
After lunch the sun has reached the other side of the house, where my home office is.
I finish today’s session and put the loom back agains the book shelf. Looking down on the floor I see little heaps of kemp fibers that have decided to leave the yarn and seek their own adventure, just as I anticipated. A new chapter of the weaving journey has begun and I cherish every second of it.
Happy spinning!
You can find me in several social media:
This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
At the moment I have around 20 fleeces waiting to be spun. It is not always easy but I try to work them in order – first in first out. I have had to give up on some fleeces that have gone brittle and stale. The other day I finished a Gute fleece and next in line is a beautiful finull/rya cross that got a silver medal in the 2018 fleece championships. In this post I show you how I am combing different fiber lengths.
The finull/rya fleece has the most beautiful locks. They are more rya-like in their appearance, but still soft like finull. The outercoat is long and silky and the undercoat soft like cashmere. The draft feels like a luxurious night cream.
My finull/rya fleece when I bought it at the auction at the 2018 fleece championships.
Cookie Monster wants all the cookies
One of the reasons why I have procrastinated for so long with this fleece is that I really didn’t know how to bring out the superpowers in it. Should I go for shine or softness? To get the shine my choice would have been to comb the wool and spin it worsted and for softness I would have opted for carding and woolen spinning. But deep down the Cookie Monster wanted all of it – both shine and softness.
To get both shine and softness in one yarn takes some planning and testing. Since this yarn was so soft I decided to go for a combing preparation – I figured that the wool was soft enough to still result in a soft yarn.
Combing different fiber lengths
After having read an article in the fall 2020 issue of Spin-Off magazine I knew what to do. Kim McKenna writes in her article Wool combing and the importance of planking about how to comb more evenly for a strong worsted yarn. My goal for this fleece isn’t a strong worsted yarn, but I think the technique will suit my goal perfectly – I want to make sure the fibers are as evenly distributed as possible.
Choosing a comb
Since the fleece I work with has quite a lot of different fiber lengths I want to make sure they are as evenly distributed as I can manage. Therefore I use a single pitched pair of mini combs. Using two-pitched combs may result in more of a separation between the fiber lengths.
Loading
I load the combs with the cut end as close to the tines as I can. I try not to load more than a third of the height of the tines. Too much wool will make it tougher on my hands and arms. It will also give me an uneven result.
I load the combs with the cut end as close to the tines as possible.
First combing
I comb five passes, starting with the outermost part of the tip ends. If I go further in it will be more work and more waste. I use a circular motion – horizontal for the first pass, vertical for the second and then horizontal again. To save my wrists and shoulders I lock the arm of my stationary comb against the side of my torso.
I start combing at the very tip of the staples.
After the fifth pass I doff the wool off the comb in one continuous length. I pull both left, right and center to make the pulling motion easier on my hand. A lot of very short fibers are still on the comb, but they are too short to spin and I use them for other things.
I pull the fiber off the comb in one continuous length.
Planking and second combing
The resulting length now has most of the long fibers in one end and most of the short fibers in the other, which I don’t want. Therefore I divide the lengths into three to four shorter lengths and put them back onto the comb for a second combing. This is the planking part.
I divide the continuous length into shorter lengths and put them back onto the comb.
I comb another three passes to even out the fibers again. The motions are now very light since nothing is sticking to the combs anymore.
Three more light passes after the first combing.
Dizzing
I pull off the fibers through a diz and make a bird’s nest. Had I owned a pair of single-pitched combs with a combing station I would have used them for this step. Pinching the comb between my thighs isn’t ideal. The position isn’t very good for my back and my legs are far from relaxed.
I use a small dizzing hole since I want to spin a fairly fine yarn. There is still an uneven distribution of the fibers, but much more even than after the first time. The quality is also higher than after the first pass – I see no uneven parts and no nepps in the dizzed roving.
I pinch the mini comb between my thighs and diz the fiber off the comb.
With a roving as well prepared as this the spinning feels very light. With the second combing the preparation takes more time, but I win it back when I spin and use the yarn.
Spinning a fiber as well prepared as this is a pure joy.
Since I combed the wool twice and dizzed the yarn gets very evenly spun and I find a relaxed focus behind the spinning wheel.
A Cookie Monster yarn
The yarn is finished. I 2-plied it and washed it last night and this morning it has dried by the air source heat pump over night.The yarn is very evenly spun and shiny. It is not as soft as I had hoped, but I still think I can wear it next to skin, perhaps as a shawl in some sort of lace pattern. Looking at it I realize that all the short fibers I removed were a part of the softness I imagined when I analyzed the staples. But there is not much I could have done here – had I kept the short fibers in the yarn they would have crept out of it sooner or later and created nepps. Still, I love the result. Considering that there still are different fiber lengths in the yarn it wouldn’t have been this even had I not planked after the first combing.
My Cookie Monster yarn is mostly shiny and still a little soft.
I made a video of the combing process. This time the video is available for patrons only. You can become a patron 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.
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.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
This week a nine year old picture of a bag of Swedish finewool popped up in my Facebook feed. The picture showed of my very first fleece on my very first spinning lesson. It was also the very first time I ever held a spindle in my hand. A lot has happened since then. In this post I walk you through some of the highlights from this journey.
A bag of wool from Pia-Lotta the Swedish finewool sheep.
My friend Anna is my husband’s colleague. At an office get-together Anna and I talked about knitting. She mentioned that an acquaintance of hers had sheep but didn’t know what to do with the wool. The acquaintance also said that a large amount of Swedish wool was wasted (I think the number at the time was around 80 per cent), or even burnt. This was shocking to me and I looked up an evening spinning class that Anna and I signed up for.
A ram and his lamb
Meanwhile there was a Swedish finewool ram called Muffe. He fathered many lambs, one of which was called Pia-Lotta. For some reason kids were bullying Muffe. He got very stressed and had to be put to sleep for this reason. Muffe had been very loved by his Shepherdess Ulla.
Ulla had not planned to keep the lamb Pia-Lotta. But when Ulla saw Pia-Lotta on her way to the truck that was going to the butcher’s she saw so much of Muffe in Pia-Lotta that she couldn’t bare losing her too. Pia-Lotta got to stay on the farm.
It was at the farm where Pia-Lotta lived that the spinning course took place every other Tuesday evening and it was Pia-Lotta’s fleece that ended up in my bags on that first spinning lesson. After that I have got two more of her fleeces, one of which I shore myself.
Me shearing the finull sheep Pia-Lotta in the beginning of my spinning journey.
The journey of a fleece
I got very fascinated by the journey the fleece made from newly shorn to a finished textile. Since the world of wool and this process was all new to me I was totally smitten by it. I wanted to tell the world what a beautiful thing spinning and the process from fluff to stuff was. So I did. I made a video that became a two year project. During that time I shot the whole process from the newly shorn sheep (Pia-Lotta) to a finished sweater where I showed all the steps – sorting, washing, teasing, carding/combing, spinning, knitting and assembling. I called the video Slow fashion – from sheep to sweater.
The sweater that was the product of the project is one of my favourites. It has a lot of flaws that I have learned from and I know so much more now. But it was at the same time so much better than the first skeins I spun from the very same wool (the white yarn in the sweater comes from Pia-Lotta).
We all learn every second. New experiences come to us all through the course of our lives. We build on that experience and develop our skills. Just as every single one of you I started from the beginning. In fact, I start from the beginning every day.
Pia-Lotta the sheep and mittens from her fleece. Before I knit them I learned to knit both mittens at the same time to get the same size. Since I knit them I have learned to spin with higher twist for two-end knitting to avoid yarn breaks every time I untwisted the skein. Photo by Dan Waltin
Every time I pick up a spinning project – new or old – I start from the beginning of that particular day. When the day is over I have learned new things that I bring to tomorrow’s beginning. And it goes on. I still make mistakes, only different ones than nine years ago. And I still learn from them and look upon them as a map of what I have learned.
By the way, I write this particular paragraph in the morning. I would never have thought something this clever in the evening. Just saying.
Making videos
Slow fashion became the real boost of my then newborn youtube channel. The video is still one of my most popular ones with over 17000 views. When I look at it my heart tingles. It tingles from how much the video means to me and from all I see that I have learned since then. I have learned about shooting, angles, locations, light, sound, editing and, of course, spinning and wool preparation. But it all started there, with that idea of sharing the process of the wool and what it did for me with the world.
A journey on a train
I started spinning on a supported spindle because my family’s decision to stop flying gave me a long train journey to my father’s family in Austria. I wanted a craft that I could dive in to on those hours gliding through the landscape. So I practiced supported spinning daily from November until we got on the train in July. That moment when I finally placed the spinning bowl in my lap and started spinning was magical. My then ten year old son helped me shoot a short video somewhere in Denmark.
A teaching journey
That train journey became the starting point of teaching for me. Spinners in Sweden were fascinated with the technique and soon someone asked me to teach supported spinning. I can’t resist flattery, so I did it, knowing nothing at all about teaching. Now, several teaching hours later, teaching spinning is one of my favourite things to do in the world. Finding a student’s learning style and watching someone understand, learn and love a technique is pure joy. Through teaching spinning I learn more than through any other means. So thank you all past, present and future students for teaching me how to be a better teacher, student and spinner.
I am still smitten by the journey the fleece makes from fluff to stuff, but today that infatuation has grown into a more mature kind of love.
The most important part of my spinning journey has been the inner journey. Spinning has taught me to appreciate the wool I see before me. I just need to find the superpowers of that particular fleece and make them shine. I have learned to be thankful to the wool I work with and for being able to work with wool.
Wool is an inner journey for me.
Working with wool is my safe space. It is a place where I can relax, find focus and balance. The world is always beautiful when I work with wool. If it is not, the wool will get me to that place of beauty soon enough.
When I spin the doors to creativity open and I see and understand things that have been blurred before. The feeling of the wool in my hands, the rhythm of the wheel or spindle, the repetitive motions of the drafting. It is a place where I find the space between my thoughts and relax in the here and now. And I thank wool for that.
Happy spinning!
/Josefin, spinning student and teacher
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.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
My favourite time of day is in the morning. The air feels better in the morning – I’m the first one to inhale it. My thoughts are new and fresh, my mind clearer and I find peace. Sometimes I giggle to myself thinking what a treat it is to have discovered this wonderful time of day that very few people seem to know about. In this blog post I spin some precious Gute wool and sing my ode to the morning and its gifts to me.
My space in the morning
I get up at 5:45 a.m. on week days to be able to work when I know work at my best. On weekends I get up at 7 a.m. to have those precious morning hours to myself. Since I work from home since March for pandemic reasons I don’t bike to work anymore, which I truly miss. Instead I have the luxury of being able to take morning swims every day (I have 300 meters to the lake). I can highly recommend it – the combination of energy refill and mindfulness after a morning swim is indescribable.
A morning swim gives me energy and peace of mind. It is 8 a.m. and 6 degrees Celsius in the air, 12 in the water. I swim if the water isn’t too wild and stay in for around 3 minutes.
I’s like the morning offers a unique dimension – the air is fresh to breathe, my thoughts are sprouting and the world is beautiful in all its abundance and complexity. I get access to a morning elixir that expires every day after those precious early hours. The next morning the elixir is there again, available for me to absorb. I’m at platform 9 3/4 and receive a free shot of creativity, clarity and mindfulness. I’m just surprised that other people haven’t found out this superpower charged secret yet. But, then again, in the evening I turn into a pumpkin again – after 8 p.m. my mind turns to goo and I’m not usable for anything. There may be a similar elixir in the evening that I don’t have access to while others do.
Gute in the morning
I love sitting at my spinning wheel in the morning. The room faces east and has large windows in the east and south. The rising sun fills the room with peace and lightness and the view over the lake is spectacular. When I spin the sun warms my back and gives the yarn a special morning sparkle.
The rising sun fills our living room with peace and lightness.
These past few mornings I have spent some quantity time with a Gute fleece. I have had it for over a year now and for some reason I have been reluctant to spin it. Lots of other spinning projects have cut in line and the Gute fleece has humbly taken a step back to wait for its turn. When I finally decided to give the Gute fleece my full attention I was very happy I made that decision.
I’m spinning Gute wool in the morning. The light fills the living room with its energy and gentleness. I posted a short video on Instagram and my Facebook page from this session.
A fleece of contrasts
Gute wool has it all – the softest cashmere-like undercoat, long and strong outercoat and brittle and quirky kemp fibers. All in different lengths and colours. Together the fiber types make a yarn that is strong and light, robust and squishy. So many contradicting characteristics get along in one single skein.
Gute wool from one individual. The sheep has long and strong overcoat, fine undercoat and kemp over the whole body, but to varying degrees.
The kemp fibers help keeping the staples open. This make the staples very light and airy. They are easy to tease and open up like blossoms.
The slowness of Gute wool
One of the superpowers of Gute wool comes to life when I process and spin it. There is a slowness in the drafting that I find unique to this breed, at least in my short experience of it. It is like I enter a parallel drafting zone with this fiber – the fibers pass each other with a slowness that can be comparable to syrup. You know that viscous feeling where you need to wait nicely for the syrup to find its way out of the bottle before you can do anything with it.
I tease the locks to open them up and card them to give the Gute fleece the best possible conditions for spinning a smooth English longdraw.
The way I need to work the flicker and the cards slowly under the fiber’s command is truly fascinating. I can’t rush this fiber, it has a mind of its own. It is not against me, it is on the contrary very cooperative and easy to work with once it has, with strong determination, set the speed of the process.
Gute – a wool like the morning
The slowness helps me understand what is happening in the draft, how the fibers align in the semi-yarn and in the end surrender to the power of the twist. Perhaps it is the different lengths and qualities of the fibers that gives this wool such a special mindset – I never know what to expect and I need to reevaluate the drafting properties for every draft, despite the fact that I have blended the wool properly. Come to think of it, it is with Gute fleece almost like the morning – a parallel space where the conditions change and new rules apply.
Spinning Gute wool is like the morning – a parallel space where new rules apply.
I love working with a wool that challenges me and forces me to think and make decisions in all the steps of the process. I can’t take the draft for granted and I need to stay alert all the way.
Gute staples raw, teased and carded into rolags.
Every time I change from spinning to teasing, from teasing to carding or from carding to spinning I make new realizations. I get a deeper understanding of the fibers, how they work together and how to listen to the wool adapt my movements under their command.
Spinning in the morning
Coming back to the theme of this blog post, the morning is my best chance of understanding this wool more deeply. When my mind is alert and my hands eager to learn I can listen to the wool and make it shine. Sitting in the morning sun, inhaling the unused air and the shot of morning elixir gives me the spark, inspiration and peace to understand and learn.
Five finished skeins of Gute yarn. Carded and spun woolen with English longdraw.
There is still fleece in the bottom of the basket and enough for one or two more skeins. When the basket is empty I will have brand new skeins to make a textile with. The empty basket also means that the fleece I have spent so much time with and learned so much from is gone. It’s like finishing a good book and missing being a part of it. Luckily, wool grows out again and there are always new fleeces to learn from.
Creative space
The morning is the time when I feel the most grounded, inspired and creative. It is when I find my spinning mojo, my best ideas and the mental space to write blog posts. After my morning swim my mind wants and needs to be creative – spin in the pale morning sun and let my synapses connect slowly and mindfully or reflect more purposefully in a blog post. My creative space allows me to be more openminded and curious in the morning.
It’s 8 a.m. as I write the last rows of this blog post. I’m going down to the lake now for my morning swim. After that I still have a lot of morning left to enjoy.
When are you the most creative?
And, oh, last week I promised you a photo of me wearing my spinning championships gold medal and a silly grin on my face once I got the medal and the yarn back. Well, I got yarn, medal and diploma in the mail this week and, as promised, here are pictures of me with a silly grin on my face, happy as a lamb.
Gold medal, yarn and silly grin as promised.
Happy spinning!
My contribution to the embroidery category of the Swedish spinning championships 2020 got me a gold medal.
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.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
This past weekend the Swedish spinning championships 2020 were decided. Usually I visit the championships, but due to the pandemic it wasn’t a public event this year. For this reason I have no pictures from the championships to show you. The prize ceremony was live streamed, though.
There were two categories in the spinning championships. All contestants got the same wool to work with and we could choose preparation and spinning method and tools ourselves. The categories were
a 2-ply embroidery yarn from Swedish Leicester wool
the thinnest 10 gram 2-ply yarn from Swedish Jämtland wool.
Swedish Leicester locks for the embroidery category
Superfine Jämtland wool for the thinnest yarn category.
I registered for both of the categories, but I only submitted my yarn for the embroidery category. More about that below.
Embroidery yarn
Swedish Leicester wool is long, strong and shiny. Swedish Leicester is, just like Swedish Gotland, bred for the pretty skins and has basically outercoat only. The wool we got came from a farm that has received numerous medals in previous championships.
Hand combed and dizzed Swedish Leicester wool spun worsted on a suspended spindle.
The strength of the Swedish Leicester wool is suitable for embroidery yarn since it won’t break or fuzz despite repeated agitation when threaded through the fabric. The shine gives an extra focus on the yarn in the embroidery.
I combed the wool twice with my medium combs with a combing station. First I combed the locks into tops. When I had finished I placed two or three tops together and combed once more. To get the tops even I dizzed them. I spun the yarn worsted on a suspended spindle. To make the yarn stay rounded in the embroidery I chose to spin with quite a high twist. I plied the yarn on a spinning wheel.
My finished embroidery yarn for the spinning championships 2020 – 34 grams and 79 meters, 2289 m/kg. I started out with 50 grams of unwashed wool.
And the winner is…
I ended up with the gold medal for my embroidery yarn! I was very happy with the result when I submitted it, and even happier now that I won. The motivation was:
“An even and lovely yarn for the purpose with a nice thickness and well plied, which results in perfect loops for sewing.”
Yay me!
A huge and warm thank you from the bottom of my heart to all who have already congratulated me on my Facebook page and on Instagram. I am very proud of this gold medal, and perhaps a little extra proud that the gold medal went to a spindle spun yarn.
Embroidery yarn plans
The yarn and the medal will come to me in the mail one of these days, together with a diploma. My plan is to A: Wear the medal all day with a silly grin on my face, B: Post a picture for you with my medal and my silly grin and C: Do something with my embroidery yarn. I bought a new to me dyeing system this summer (bengala mud dyes) and I may split the yarn in a few smaller skeins and play with different colours. I am positive that the lustre in the Leicester locks will be spectacular when dyed. And then I will embroider my little heart out!
Thinnest yarn
I was hesitant from the start about the thinnest yarn category. I have done it several times for the Bothwell longest thread competition. It does take a lot of work and strain. This time was no exception and after around 5 grams I decided to withdraw. It took too much work, time and pain and it wasn’t worth it. So I withdrew and published an online course instead.
Jämtland wool has some merino in it and has very fine fibers. I have worked with Jämtland wool before and discovered that it is perfect for spinning from the fold, provided that it is long enough. This is what I did this time too – I opened up the individual staples with a flicker and spun from the fold on a supported spindle.
Spinning Jämtland wool from the fold for the thinnest yarn category of the spinning championships 2020 on my Björn Peck supported spindle.
I spent many evenings spinning this yarn and when I decided to withdraw I was happy I made the decision.
The gold medalist of this category ended up with a super impressive 380 meters in her 10 gram skein (about 200 meters more than the silver medalist)!
Wool is in the air
The fleece and spinning championships are one of the wool highlights of the year for me. This is when I bury my hands in seemingly endless rows of high quality fleece. It is also the time when I meet the loveliest spinners, shepherdesses and other wooly people. There are always friendly people to ask and learn from and I cherish every moment. It is an event where I forget time and space and just savour the smell, the abundance, the subtle natural colours and the sparkles from the fresh lanolin. Wool is in the air on the fleece and spinning championships.
No picture of yummy fleece here.
Shepherdesses
When people ask me how I know from whom to buy fleece this is my answer: I find my shepherdesses at the fleece championships. I see who gets the medals, a handful of shepherdesses get numerous medals for their fleeces and some even get medals in both the fleece championships and the spinning championships. Shepherdesses who know what I want as a spinner and who consider the wool quality when they plan the breeding.
No picture of yummy fleece here either.
Buying fleece
I always buy fleece at the auction that always follows the championships. Every year I have cuddled with the fleeces and talked to shepherdesses all day and come the auction I know which fleeces I plan to take home with me. I talk to the shepherdesses to find out more about the sheep – does it have a name, is the fleece a typical fleece for this breed or cross, what does she think is special about it and so on. I make a bond with these talented women and commit to make the yarn from the sheep they have cared for shine.
None of this happened this year. I got a medal that I am very proud of and I got to see which fleece got which medal. There will even be an online auction of the fleeces. But it still doesn’t come near the real thing and I can’t post juicy pictures of pile upon pile of fleece. Like with most events these days.
If you, like me, miss the real thing you are more than welcome to read the post from last year’s fleece championships (lots of yummy pictures of fleece here!). And I hope I can come to next year’s event.
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.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
