At the flea market

As many of you know, I live in Stockholm. There are lots of antique stores, but no good flea markets. By good I mean flea markets where I can find textiles and textile tools. These kind of flea markets do exist, you just need to go to the countryside to find them. For the last five years we have rented a cabin at a sheep farm in the beginning of August. Not far from the farm there is a three storey flea market in an old spinning mill. Couldn’t be better.

The market is open every Sunday all year round. Of course we made a day of it! So far I am disappointed in the range of textile tools, but there is one table at the flea market I can spend the whole day at.

The textile table

The sellers keep their table for as long as they rent them, so I know exactly where to go. My first stop is always the textile table. A woman collects textiles from around the countryside, not seldom from estates. Picture an old lady who once cherished her linen closet and filled it with hand woven gems. Picture the next generation unaware of the treasure hidden behind a squeaky cabinet door. The local super heroine, the Textile Lady, comes to the rescue and saves all the textiles from oblivion.

A table full of folded textiles. — The textile table at the flea market. Filled with old textiles that someone has cherished, another thrown away and a third has saved from extinction.

The table is filled with sheets, towels, table cloths and lots of haberdashery (oh, how I love this word!). Bobbin lace, name bands, needles and every colour of buttons you can imagine.

Hooks, pins and sewing thread. — Flea market treasures – hooks, pins and sewing thread.

The old packages are just exquisite. The pin box above right says “First class brass pins, solid heads”. Isn’t it to die for?

Boxes of lace and name bands. — Lace and name bands for every occasion.

I stayed for a long while at the lace box, just taking in all the lace beauty and the hours upon hours of (women’s) work invested in them.

I bought three embroidery hoops from the haberdashery corner (I just had to write this sweet word again!). The two bigger ones look like most embroidery hoops I have seen (see also featured image). But the smallest one is just so exquisitely made! The locking mechanism seems different and the inner hoop has a band meticulously wrapped around it. When I look at the label and the logo I’m thinking the 1020’s.

Save the sheets!

My heart aches for all the sheets, towels and table cloths at the flea market and I want to rescue them all. I can’t, but we always end up buying more than we intended to. There is a lot of women’s history in these textiles, but also a story of industrialism and contemporary consumption patterns.

When my parents got married in 1965 they got lots of household textiles for their new home – sheets, kitchen towels, table cloths etc. They still sleep on those sheets and dry their hands on those linen towels. If I should buy new sheets today, they would be threadbare in under a year. The pressure to buy more and new clothes every turn of the season has led to a pressure on the cotton industry. The cotton fibers are shorter to make way for more harvests. The yarn is more loosely spun and the sheets are woven at a wider sett to save fiber.

We bought four old sheets at the market. Last year we bought six. These are wonderfully thick and strong, some of them hand woven. They will probably last longer than a lifetime.

Four folded sheets with lace borders — Old sheets, a treasure

Look at the sheet below with the beautiful monogram. This sheet was made with love and pride. Probably also various amounts of blood, sweat and tears. However, the loom was too narrow to weave a whole sheet’s width. Thus, the sheet was woven in two lengths and joined in the middle. If you look closely, you can see a very fine seam between the letters in the monogram and above the crocheted lace. Just look at that join! Imagine the hours it took to sew it in bad lighting and sore eyes in a tiny country cottage. I sleep on these sheets with joy and the knowledge that someone has put their skill, love and hours and hours of work into my sleep comfort.

A sheet with a lace border and monogram. A tiny seam between the letters. — Can you see the join of the two sheet halves?

The sheets cost €4 each.

Upcycling

While the Textile Lady has heroically saved the textiles, we bought the workings of another textile heroine. Someone had bought four hand woven fancy kitchen towels and joined them together with a crocheted lace ribbon. Such a smart and thrifty way to upcycle old textiles.

A table cloth made of four kitchen towels joined together with lace ribbons — Kitchen towels made into a table cloth

In my textile rescuing frenzy, I bought five hand woven kitchen towels. Some of them were beautifully monogrammed.

Five white towels, two monogrammed in red — Handwoven kitchen towels

I put them away in the linen cabinet, but the other day I took them out again. My plan was to sew drawstring spindle bags. When I looked closer at them, I saw that they were woven in twill with a linen warp and cotton weft.

Close-up of a white twill textile — Twill towels in linen warp and cotton weft.

If you look closely, you can see it. The horizontal weft is matte while the vertical warp is shiny. I pulled out a warp thread and my theory was confirmed – long and shiny fibers. And then I realized that the linen thread was most likely handspun. You can see in the close-up above that the thread is not industrially even. You can also see some remaining cellulose from the flax processing.

I bought the five towels for €15. Talk about unappreciated women’s labour. Now, however, they are greatly appreciated, by me. And I have turned them into beautiful drawstring bags, ready to host spindles and new yarn for future textiles. The circle is complete.

Enamel necessities

The last thing we bought was an enamel washbasin. Actually, it was my husband who found it. ” I figured you would need this to wash yarn in!”. Indeed I did. This is a very typical kitchen utensil from the beginning of the last century by Kockums enamelware. They were very popular in the 1920’s and 1930’s but they stopped making them in the 1960’s. I have bought several Kockums utensils from Swedish e-bay – colanders, 5 and 10 deciliter measures and funnels. My favorites are the milk fetcher and the cream fetcher. The fetchers are lidded buckets to fetch the milk (2 l) and cream (5 dl) from the milk store in. We use the milk fetcher for compost and the cream fetcher for tea.

Anyway, the washbasin is doing its job very well and when I don’t use it for soaking yarn in it is the proud home of my cards and combs. We also bought a potty for my husband’s niece who was born two months ago.

A washbasin and potty in enameled tin — Enamel basin for various handspun related purposes

What about the textile tools?

Well, I looked for textile tools and found none. You might expect the odd scutching knife, flax hackle or weasel, but nothing. A couple of modern umbrella swifts and a the ugliest sewing table you have ever seen. Well, we’ll come again next year. Maybe we will save some more textiles or spot a whole range of flax processing tools, who knows!

You can follow me on 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. The content I create is totally free from advertisement. 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 posts and videos. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
If you like what I do, please tell all your fiber friends and share these links!

September 1, 2018January 30, 2019

Flax processing

Last weekend I attended the Wool and flax days at Skansen open-air museum in Stockholm. Dressed in all wool and linen, I brought my own retted flax from the 2017 harvest. My plan was to process my own flax with their tools and guidance. My friend Anna was kind enough to shoot the whole thing.

This is part four in a blog series about flax. The previous posts are about flax processing in general, the 2018 harvest in my experimental flax patch and spinning flax on a spindle. Last year I wrote about the first harvests in my experimental flax patch and my first attempt at spinning flax on a wheel.

Skansen open-air museum

Skansen is the oldest open-air museum in the world. Old houses and buildings from all over Sweden have been brought to Skansen for display. Skansen employees are dressed in period costumes and tell the visitors all about the buildings, tools and ways of living.

I spent an hour of the beautiful August afternoon at Älvrosgården, a farm from the beginning of the 19th century. For this event flax processing tools had been brought out on the yard to show how a strick of dry and dull flax stems can be turned into gold.

Tools for processing flax were often a bridal gift. A married woman needed to be able to process the family’s flax to make clothing and domestic textiles. You can often see names and wedding dates on old distaffs, hackles and scutching knives.

I showed the staff my modest flax harvest and asked if I could process it with their tools. They were delighted and very kind and showed me the ropes.

Breaking

The flax fiber is placed on the outside of a cellulose core. To separate the flax from the core you need to break the core. This is done in the flax break. In this stage you see how the cellulose cores crumble to bits while the long flax fibers stay intact. The Swedish word for this stage is bråka. Quite similar to the English word.

Pulling

This is a tool I have never seen or heard of before. It is called a “draga”, which is an old word for something that pulls. Which makes sense – you pull the broken flax through the “puller” to remove the coarsest bits of cellulose. Quite effective! Has any of you seen this type of tool before?

Scutching

The next step is the scutching, Skäktning in Swedish. You use a wooden tool similar to a knife to remove the bits and pieces of broken cellulose from the flax fibers. The more bits you are able to remove, the better prepared the flax will be for the final step.

Hackling

Hackling the flax is usually done in several steps. In this case, two steps. You pull the scutched flax through vicious tines to remove short and brittle fibers and the last pieces of cellulose. In this step you also arrange the fibers parallel. After having hackled a while I learned how to lift the strick of flax over the hackles instead of swinging it. When swinging, the flax turns in the air and doesn’t lie straight over the tines.

On the table you can see samples of flax that has been retted with different methods – dew retting, water retting and snow retting.

The first step of the hackling process is through a rough hackle and the second step through a finer hackle. This stage is performed at your own risk. I managed to go through it with only one pierced finger. These are the only flax processing tools I actually have at home.

Close-up of a person hackling flax. — I ended up with only one hackling wound! Photo by Anna Herting

The coarser bits that end up in the hackles, the tow, is saved and spun into a coarser yarn or used as insulation in the buildings. The pieces of cellulose core that is scattered on the ground are treats for the chickens. So while this is a time and labour demanding process, nothing goes to waste.

Admiring

The flax turned into such a beautiful bundle of gold. I am still amazed at what I have managed to make, from just a handful of flax seeds. I got new seeds for this season from Ann-Marie, a retired flax farmer and spinner. This flax is actually spinable! And I just found out that Ann-Marie is selling out the last of her seeds and she is sending me some for next season!

My beautiful strick of flax from the 2017 harvest in my experimental flax patch.

The fibers are long, lustrous and plentiful. And I must have done something right with the retting too. I am happy as a clam about my beautiful flax.

Four strikes of processed flax — Results from my experimental flax so far. From the left: 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.

You can see the difference to the earlier years. The 2014 harvest was the thickness of a rat’s tail. 2015 was at least three rat’s tails! In 2016 I failed with the retting, you can still see lots of pieces of cellulose. Finally, the newly processed flax from the 2017 harvest is long, beautiful and silky. And just outside our house, the 2018 harvest is retting on the lawn.

I’ll be back next year

I passed my flax processing exam. The Skansen staff was so kind and helpful and welcomed me back to process my next harvest. A big thank you to the Skansen staff at Älvrosgården for their kindness and guidance, to Anna for shooting and to Ann-Marie for the seeds.

Happy spinning!

You can follow me on 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. The content I create is totally free from advertisement. 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 posts and videos. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
If you like what I do, please tell all your fiber friends and share these links!

August 25, 2018

I choose to stay on the ground

This is not a spinning video. Rather, is a craftivism project about climate change. In the video I use spinning as a means to reflect over climate change and my own carbon footprint. This is I choose to stay on the ground.

Reduce, reuse recycle and respect

I try to live my life in a way that is as resourceful as possible. Reduce, reuse, recycle and respect are words that influence everything I do. Bike riding, car pooling, growing our own vegetables, eating less meat, cutting down on plastic etc. These are all things that have become a way of living. It doesn’t feel like a sacrifice and I wouldn’t want to go back to the way we lived our lives before.

My husband and I have also decided not to fly. We take the train to visit my family in Austria. Choosing to stay on the ground is an important step we have taken to reduce our family’s carbon footprint.

Spinning and climate change?

Where does spinning fit in and what does it have to do with climate change, you may ask. Well, there are several ways I find that spinning plays a part in my effort to reduce my carbon emissions. First of all, making garments and textiles from wool that I have bought locally and spun myself is an important part of reducing my carbon footprint. This is an important part of my videos, especially the documentary videos like Slow fashion and Slow fashion 2. Spinning your own yarn is in itself sustainable, especially when you use (local) wool that is such a versatile material.

Secondly, the act of spinning also generates feelings of love, mindfulness and kindness. I try to express this in last year’s documentary video For the love of spinning. I like to think that I spread these feelings in my videos. I get lots of comments from my followers about how the videos have helped them find peace and a sense of grounding.

Thirdly, spinning – or any other craft – lets me reflect on a deeper level over what I do and what I experience while I am crafting. These reflections in turn influence what I do and the decisions I make. To remind me of these reflections I have the yarn, with all the gentle thoughts spun right into it.

A craftivist approach

I’m not telling you all this to be a miss goody two-shoes. Climate change is too important to me to care about the appearance of things. The climate can’t wait, we have to make drastic changes in our daily lives, now.

I choose to stay on the ground combines my concern for climate change with the power of spinning, or crafting in general. I have been investigating craftivism and read an excellent book, How to be a craftivist: The art of gentle protest, by Sarah Corbett. The book is a kind of manifesto for a kind of activism that is beautiful, kind and fair in a world we want to make just that – beautiful, kind and fair.

Josefin Waltin reading a book, How to be a craftiest by Sarah Corbett — Reading up on craftivism on the train through Denmark

I do have quite a large group of followers and I’m taking advantage of that when I’m releasing his video. This means that I use you all for spreading a video that has an urgent message.

A call to action

The video is divided into two parts. The first part is my own experience from a three day train journey through Europe to visit family in Austria. I spin and reflect over climate change and why I choose to stay on the ground. The second part is a call to action. I invite you, the viewer, to take part in this craftivist project. I have chosen five questions about climate change that I would like you to reflect over while you craft in public transportation. I also ask you to share your thoughts (and the video!) under the hashtag #crafterthoughts and #ichoosetostayontheground.

Making the video

The scene is a three day train journey from Stockholm, Sweden to Salzburg, Austria. I shot about 150 small clips from the train and narrowed them down to fit in a five minute video.

Josefin Waltin spinning on a city square. — Evening spin in Copenhagen, Denmark

The train ride obviously took a lot of time. Frustrating sometimes, yes, but mostly surprisingly pleasant. We sat together for three days, talking, playing games, reading, napping. Some of us were spinning. Just being in each other’s presence brought us closer together on both physical and mental levels. It felt so good to just be together.

There are no actual shots of my husband and children in the video, but if you look closely, you can see clues of their participation. In the beginning for example you can see them on the station with our suitcases. Also, you can see them on a hiking trip when we have arrived in Austria. And, of course, Dan has helped me with some of the video shooting.

Tools I use in the video:

Supported spindle from Malcolm Fielding
Magnetic spinning bowl from John Rizzi
French spindle from NiddyNoddyUK
Turkish spindle (Lark model) from Jenkins yarn tools

With that said, go and share that video. And happy spinning!

You can follow me on 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. The content I create is totally free from advertisement. 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 posts and videos. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
If you like what I do, please tell all your fiber friends and share these links!

August 18, 2018August 18, 2018

Spinning flax on a spindle

This is the third post in my series about flax. I wrote the earlier posts about flax processing as a whole, and about this year’s harvest. I don’t have a lot of experience spinning flax, but I’m eager to learn. And I made a video. This time the video is about spinning flax on a spindle. The video also includes how I dress a distaff. Spinning flax on a spindle is a wonderful time to really get to know the fiber and the spinning technique. Also, I’m a bit smitten by Norman Kennedy when he demonstrates spinning flax on an in-hand spindle.

Tools

I use a medieval style in-hand (grasped) spindle with a spiral notch and whorl (in featured image). I bought them from NiddyNoddyUK and I asked Neil to make a spiral notch turning counter-clockwise. The outermost layer of flax fiber is slightly turned counter-clockwise. Hence, most flax is spun counter-clockwise. This gave me a chance to practice my in-hand spinning with my left hand. If you want to know more about my thoughts on spinning direction I made a blog series about this earlier, check here, here and here.

The distaffs are my own hand carved from our lime tree avenue. I made one belt distaff and one floor distaff. In our terrace lounge furniture there is a very convenient hole in the lid, which fits the floor distaff perfectly.

Dressing the distaff

I have tried to read up on how to dress a distaff. there are many traditions in this, and I picked one that appealed to me. In the video I use a strick of hand processed Belgian flax.

A stick of flax — A beautiful strick of Belgian flax

I tied a ribbon around the root end of the bundle and tied the ends around my waist. I then carefully criss-crossed the bundle several times in very thin layers in an arch on the table in front of me. In this way, the fibers are well separated and always has another fiber to catch on to.

Josefin Waltin preparing to dress a distaff. The flax is spread out in an arch on the table in front of her. — Preparing to dress the distaff. The fibers are criss-crossed in thin layers and they all have fiber friends to hold on to.

When I had finished making the arch, I rolled the flax around the belt distaff and tied with the ends of the ribbon. I should have used a longer ribbon, though.

The flax on the floor distaff in the video is machine processed, also from Belgium I think. Bought at Växbo lin. I dressed the floor distaff the same way as I did the waist distaff.

Spinning flax

I wet spin my flax. The fiber has sort of a gluey substance that is activated in water. This makes a smoother spin. It also helps balancing the yarn. But you have to make sure to add the water at the right place – at the point of twist. Too low and nothing happens, the yarn just looks wet spun but when it dries the fibers go their own way. Too high and you will have trouble with unspun fibers clogged together. I put some flax seeds in my water to get some of that flax seed gel in the spinning.

Flax fibers are very long and I can keep quite a long spinning triangle. This can be a bit fiddly sometimes, when the drafting triangle gets longer than my arms can reach comfortably.

Because of the length of the fibers, I don’t need very much twist. When I spin wool on an in-hand spindle I usually use a short suspension. I don’t need that when I spin flax. Keeping the spindle in my hand all the time gives me control over the spinning and I can put my focus where I need it the most: On the drafting zone. I need to make sure that there is just the right amount of fiber in the drafting zone.

Josefin Waltin drafting flax fiber from a distaff. — Drafting away, always keeping a close eye on the drafting triangle.

Flax isn’t as forgiving as wool when it comes to lumps, you can’t untwist and redraft. But I still do untwist. Right at the moment where I draft, I untwist slightly to make a smoother draft. This comes in handy especially after I have removed my spinning hand from the yarn to wet my fingers.

A word about climate change

In the shot when I spin leaning against a tree, you can see the yellowed grass behind me. This is not because it is autumn – the video was shot in July, a time when the grass is usually fresh and green. The summer of 2018 was extremely hot and dry. Over 30°C for weeks and almost no rain in large parts of the country. Harvests were ruined and cattle owners had to slaughter their animals because there were no pastures left. We had over 70 forest fires and had to get fire fighters from continental Europe to be able manage them. Talk about climate change.

Josefin Waltin spinning flax with a spindle and distaff. Yellow grass in the background — Spinning in front of the yellowed grass from an extremely hot and dry summer.

Ergonomics

There are a few things you need to think about to be kind to your body. We don’t need to strain our muscles, we want to be able to spin as much and as healthy as possible, don’t we?

Try to keep your spindle close to your body. This way you don’t need to lift your arms more than necessary. Use your body as support! I rest my spinning hand against my belly or hip when I spin.

Aim towards a straight spinning hand wrist. Bending the wrist too much can lead to strained muscles. Adapt your grip to get the most comfortable hand position. In the video you can see me using two different grips on the spindle. Before I started editing the video, I didn’t realize that I was using two different grips. I noticed it when I was adding the captions and figured I had changed grips to get more comfortable.

The first grip is when my hands are close to each other, i.e. when the hand of my spinning arm is perpendicular to my body or pointing slightly upwards. In this grip I hold the spindle between my thumb, index finger and third finger. The other fingers are supporting the grip. Thumb on the inner side of the spindle and the rest of the fingers on the outer side. I roll the spindle between my thumb, index finger and third finger. I would not use this grip when my hand below a 90 degree angle, since it forces my wrist to bend.

Josefin Waltin spinning flax with a spindle and distaff. Text says "Grip 1: Roll the spindle between index finger and thumb. Support with other fingers." — Grip 1, which I wasn’t even aware of that I was using before I watched the video.

The second grip is one I can use for all my hand positions, but if I have started with the first grip I change to the second when my arm is below a perpendicular angle. I put my fourth finger on the inner side of the spindle to support it. I do the rolling mostly with my index finger in this grip. This is my preferred grip, but it is still nice to be able to change between two different grips during the spinning.

Close-up of a person spinning flax on a spindle. Text says: "Grip 2: Hold the spindle between your third finger and thumb. Supporting with your fourth finger and rolling with your index finger." — Grip 2 is the grip I use most of the time.

Spinning towards the end of the summer

It takes time to spin flax on a spindle and I’m far from done with the flax I dressed the distaff with. I will keep spinning until the summer is over and it’s not comfortable spin outdoors anymore.

Happy spinning!

You can follow me on 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. This is a very welcome contribution to the time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. 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.
If you like what I do, please tell all your fiber friends and share these links!

August 11, 2018August 12, 2018

Save the thrums!

A skein of dark grey yarn with knots on it

I have participated in another competition. It is the same as I participated in at a wool fair last year. The competition is called ‘Spin your prettiest yarn’ and the challenge is to spin any kind of yarn from Swedish wool, and ad something recycled. Last year I came in second with my pigtail yarn The sheep, the chicken, the pig and the lion, where the recycled material was chicken feathers. In the 2018 competition, I want to save the thrums. I didn’t win anything, but I had a great time spinning the yarn.

Save the thrums!

In this year’s competition my recycled material is weaving thrums. At least I think that’s what they are called. I’m talking about the last piece of the warp when you cut the weave off the loom. When you cut, there are warp threads left tied to the warp beam that are too short to do anything with. They have a special name in Swedish – effsingar, also meaning something that is cut off (I’ve never heard it being used that way, though). When I have finished a weave on my rigid heddle loom and cut it off, the thrums are about 40 cm long. My heart cries when I cut these handspun pieces of magic off and just leave them (I have never been able to throw them away). But for this project, they will bring some bling to my prettiest yarn.

Making the yarn

I used a beautiful grey fleece of a finewool/rya mix that I had combed. I spun the yarn on a supported spindle and chain plied it in sections, a method called ply on the fly. But before I let the twist into the loop, I inserted a two inch piece of thrum in the loop. The thrums came from my first and second pillow cases and a blanket.

Plying on the fly on a supported spindle is a focus-demanding business. I actually feel a bit like a spider, handling the spindle, three strands of yarn and the butterflied yarn supply. Ad to that a gazillion 2-inch pieces of thrums to fiddle into the loop of the chain ply and you may agree with me.

Close-up of a person plying on a supported spindle. — Plying on the fly takes focus.

The yarn had to weigh at least 50 grams, so I had to spin 50 grams on one single spindle. It worked, but it was quite tough the last 10 grams.

A spindle full of dark grey yarn. — 50 g of yarn on a 23 g spindle (Malcolm Fielding).

After I had finished the spinning, I made a simple knot on each thrum. At this stage, a lot of them wiggled their way out of the loop. I started making knots at the tie end of the skein and followed the yarn all the way through the skein. I came up with this method after I had shot the clip for the video. Since I had basically the same loop length on every loop, I could easily find where a thrum was missing this way. The knots were a bit slippery since the thrums were naturally warp-straight.

After washing the yarn the knots were a bit more friendly towards their destiny as knots and stayed where I had put them.

A skein of dark grey yarn. It has little coloured knots on it and blue flowers. — A finished yarn with saved thrums

FYI: Strong fibers spun and plied on the fly can generate a mean paper cut.

A knitted swatch of dark grey yarn with coloured knots in it. — Save the thrums swatch.

Happy spinning!

August 5, 2018August 5, 2018

Harvest day in the experimental flax patch

Bundles of flax on the ground. The top 1/3 of the bundles are green and the bottom 2/3 are yellowed.

I never know when it is the perfect day to harvest my flax. When I read up on the subject, it usually says to harvest about 30 days after the first blossom. The stems should be yellow to up to about a third of the length of the stalk. This year, though, has been extreme in the sense that it has been hotter than ever before. Weeks of temperatures close to 30°C and no rain for over a month. According to a local flax association, the heat can make the flax mature faster than usual. I the end of July I decided it was harvest day in the experimental flax patch.

This is the second post in my flax series.

A quick resume

This is the fifth year with the experimental flax patch. My ambition with it is to learn something new every year and bring that new knowledge into the next season. Someday I hope I have enough knowledge to produce spinnable flax fiber.

I have processed the harvests for the first three years to the best of my ability. The only flax processing tools I own are two hackles. Last year’s harvest has been retted and dried but I haven’t processed it yet. I may be getting some real processing tools later in the fall.

I bought the first seed from a commercial seed brand. The resulting harvest was ok and I used the threshed seeds for the following seasons. Earlier this year, though, I bought the seed Ilona from a retiring flax farmer.

Flax harvest of 2018

I used the Ilona seed for the 2018 flax season. I have never had such long and straight plants! When I sowed the seed I got a little carried away, though. It was too much for my regular flax patch in the flower bed at the house. I decided to expand the experiment with a branch in the allotment. Unfortunately, I hadn’t enough seed for both patches. This resulted in the seed being spread unevenly, which in turn affected the quality of the flax harvest. Flax likes to be planted evenly and quite closely together. The further away the plants are from each other, the thicker the stems and the more seed capsules they will develop. For spinning the flax stems need to be thin and straight with fewer capsules. Perhaps the extreme weather contributed to the quality as well – the plants were uneven in both length and thickness.

Close-up of bundled-up flax stalks — Quite a difference in thickness of the flax plants in this year’s flax harvest.

When I pulled the plants I tried to pull the same length for the same bunch. I’m still concerned that I may have pulled a little too soon, but since this season has been so crazy, I didn’t want to keep it in the ground anymore.

The root of a flax plant — The flax is pulled straight from the ground, root and all. Photo by Dan Waltin

It is perfectly fine to pull the flax early, though. It will result in finer fibers, but also a less amount of mature seed to thresh for next season. So I will have to buy new seed and hopefully I will get some good quality seed from an experienced spinning flax farmer.

Next step: Rippling and retting

The next step in the process is rippling and retting the flax. I usually dew ret on the lawn just outside the house. But since the weather has been so dry, I think it will be a while before there is any dew to talk about, so I think I will wait a couple of weeks before I start the retting process. Meanwhile, the flax hangs safely on the wall of the house and looks pretty and promising. And I still have last year’s retted flax to process and some commercial flax to spin.

Happy spinning!

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August 1, 2018August 4, 2018

New series: Flax

It’s flax season! I don’t want to spin flax indoors because of all the dirt that falls out in the process. This is why I basically only spin flax in the summer. Also, late summer and autumn is the time for flax processing. So, I will write a flax series.

In this series I will write about my own experimental flax patch, processing the fiber and spinning. To begin with, here is a short summary of the different steps in the process from seed to yarn.

Flax processing

Processing flax is quite labour intensive. Since I – so far – have a very small flax patch (about 2 square meters), it is manageable. These are, in short, the steps I go through with my flax in the process from seed to yarn:

Sowing

The seed can be sowed as soon as the soil is defrosted and manageable. I usually wait for the first weed to sprout. After deweeding, I’m ready to sow. This makes it a lot easier to distinguish the sprouting flax from weeds later on. To avoid the flax patch becoming a day bed for the neighbour’s cat, I usually place a grid a few inches over the ground.

Harvesting

I try to harvest about 30 days after the first blossom. I grab a bunch of plants and pull them right up, roots and all. Keeping the roots gives me a longer stalk. Also, the root protects the fiber from rotting (compared to a cut plant).

Drying

I make bundles of the flax and hang them over a fence in the sun to dry. I try to hang them high enough to avoid any curious rodents. When the flax is totally dry it is time to ret it.

Rippling

The seed capsules need to be removed from the stalks before you can process the fiber. This is done with a ripple. It looks like a big comb. You pull a bundle through the ripple, and the seed capsules fall off. The seed capsules are saved and threshed for next season.

I don’t own a ripple. Instead, I put the bundles in a pillow case and beat it with a mallet to remove the seed capsules from the stalks.

Retting

This is a tricky part and I don’t have enough experience to know when the retting is just right. Since we don’t have a stream nearby, my only option is to dew ret my flax. I spread the bundles in a thin layer on the lawn. If it isn’t wet enough, I water the flax with a watering pot. I have to watch the process carefully to avoid under or over retting. I also turn the flax once a week to get an even retting process. When the fibers separate easily from the core when I bend the stalk, the retting is finished.

When the retting is complete, I dry the flax in bundles.

Breaking

The flax stalk has a cellulose core. The flax fibers are placed around the core. To get hold of the fibers, the stalks needs to be broken. This process breaks the core, but not the fibers. Since I don’t own a flax breaker, I do it the stone age way – I try to crush the core with a stone against a rock. Sometimes it works.

Scutching

In the scutching process, the majority of the broken pieces of cellulose are removed from the fibers with a scutching knife. Since I don’t have one, I use a spatula. It doesn’t work very well.

Hackling

To separate the fibers I use two different hackles. A coarser one at first and then I continue to a finer one. This is the final part of the processing of the fiber. I end up with the hackled line flax and the coarser tow.

Spinning

I haven’t spun any of my own flax yet, mainly because I don’t think it has a good enough quality. I also haven’t practiced flax spinning to a point where I think I deserve to spin my own flax.

Coming up

In the next post in this series I will write about this year’s flax harvest.

Happy spinning!

July 27, 2018July 27, 2018

Ply on the fly on a Turkish spindle

A spindle and bowl on a chair on a meadow. Mountains in the background.

When I was in Austria with my family recently I experimented with plying on the fly on a Turkish spindle. I posted a picture on Instagram and asked if anyone wanted me to make a video about it. I got a very nice response from several of you who wanted me to go ahead. So I did. Here is my video where I demonstrate how I ply on the fly on a Turkish spindle.

The Turkish spindle

I spin a lot on suspended spindles in the summer, especially my Turkish models. They are perfect for spinning when walking. They don’t take up much room, neither for transport nor for the actual spinning. But sometimes I find spinning on a suspended spindle a bit tedious, so I wanted to learn how to ply on the fly. I have plied a lot on the fly, but so far only on supported spindles.

Ply on the fly on a Turkish spindle

When you ply on the fly you spin a section first. Then you chain-ply that section before you spin the next section. Plying on the fly is a great technique to get a finished yarn without winding the whole cop off the spindle. Well, you do actually wind it all off, but in smaller and more manageable sections. It gives the spinner variation between spinning and plying and you take advantage of the fact that the single is fresh when you ply it. This means that I always want to finish after a plied section and I don’t leave a spun cop on the shaft.

Spinning

For regular spinning on a Turkish spindle you wind the yarn onto the wings. When you ply on the fly you wind the single onto the shaft instead, just like you would on a regular suspended spindle (or the temporary cop of a supported spindle). Then, after you have plied the single, you wind the plied yarn onto the wings.

When I started practicing plying on the fly the spindle kept dropping to the ground when I was spinning. I got very frustrated because I couldn’t figure out why. And because I was walking at the time. I couldn’t see any difference from regular Turkish spindle spinning. But then I realized that I wound the yarn on differently. Winding the single around the wings helps securing the yarn. So when I figured this out, I wound the yarn around the shaft for plying on the fly, and then under one of the wings before securing it with a half hitch. And, voilá, no more dropping.

Transferring the single

When you have spun your desired length of single, you transfer it to your fiber hand with the butterflying technique – you pick up the yarn in a figure eight with your thumb and pinkie, until you have no more single. This can be done against your belly. It will be more efficient if you do it against a hard surface (my belly isn’t) like a spinning bowl or a table. If this is your start of the yarn, make a loop. If you have already plied a section, you pick up the loop from its parking place on one of the wings. You now have all the freshly spun single on the thumb and pinkie of your fiber hand.

If you have already plied a section, secure the plied end on the shaft with a half hitch (or through the hook if that is how your spindle is constructed).

Chain plying

Pick up the loop with your spindle hand index finger. Do not let go of the loop.
Pull your single through the loop with your spindle hand thumb, keeping the index finger in the original loop. Make sure you keep all the strands tense.
Pick up the new loop from the spindle hand thumb onto your fiber hand middle finger and pull the loop out. This is done by letting go of one strand of yarn at a time from your butterfly. You now have three strands of yarn. Keep these taut. Keep your index finger in the original loop.
When you are happy with the length of the section, you can pull your index finger out of the original loop and let the spindle twist the yarn into balance.
Wind the plied yarn onto the wings of the spindle – slow and fancy or fast and efficient, your choice. Make a half hitch on the shaft (or put the yarn in the hook) and start the next chain.

When you are out of singles, secure the loop on one of the wings and start spinning the next section.

A person plying on a Turkish spindle — Keep the strands taut and keep the index finger in the original loop

The location

Since I started plying on the fly in Austria, I decided to make the video there as well. We stayed where we alway stay, at a B&B in the town of Mondsee in Salzkammergut. The B&B is an old convent from the 15th and 16th centuries. The owners also own a big meadow that surrounds the B&B. The town is quite crowded with houses nearly on top of each other, but with the meadow you get a spectacular and clutter free view from the B&B over the basilica and the surrounding mountains. The meadow is the place I chose for this video. I am happy to give you a glimpse of a beautiful spot in Austria.

A person spinning on a spindle on a meadow. Mountains and a town in the background. — Spinning on a meadow in the morning sun, surrounded by mountains and a general Austrian-ness. This place makes my heart sing.

Happy spinning!

July 24, 2018July 24, 2018

Makers

When I post videos and blog posts I also write what tools and materials I use and the makers of them. Sometimes I write an entire post about a new tool that I have tried. In this I present the maker and the model and sometimes a review of the product.

I do not get paid for any of this. I don’t sell any products commercially. Nor is it my intention to.

I present the names of the makers and link to their web sites because I use their tools and I think they are good quality. I also do it because I know it is of interest to you. Many crafters in material sport craft are constantly looking for tools that feel good for them.

I am a crafter. I have – for the circumstances – a good-sized audience. If my using and presenting of tools from fellow crafters can influence fellow spinners to buy their tools I am happy for them. The spinning world is relatively small and we need to support each other.

If I should get some sort of a cooperation with a maker of spinning tools I will let you know.

Happy spinning!

July 13, 2018January 30, 2019

Tweed!

Two balls of dark grey yarn with coloured specks in them

As I have mentioned before, I am taking part in PLY magazine’s spinalong 51 yarns. It is a theme-based spinalong based on the book 51 yarns by Jacey Boggs Faulkner. Each week they choose one participant who wins a year’s subscription to the magazine. I actually won on week 10: Semi worsted. This week’s theme is tweed.

Tweed: First try

I started a couple of weeks ago and planned to use short clips of handspun yarn that I had unplied and fluffed up. It didn’t work out very well. The fibers didn’t join in in the yarn. Instead they fell out and looked like lint that had got stuck to the yarn.

A ball of dark grey yarn on a stone — Tweed, first try: Failed.

A second try

Of course I wasn’t happy with the yarn. I could have settled for a failed yarn, but I didn’t. I really liked the specks of colour in the dark grey yarn and I knew I could do better. So I browsed for Sari silk and found a beautiful colour blend with turquoise as a main colour. I am very much in a turquoise period right now.

I picked it up from the post office just a few days later and it was as yummy in reality as it was on the picture online, perhaps even more so.

A braid of turquoise based sari silk — Sweet sari silk

Since I have no prior experience with tweed, I wanted to spin a couple of samples with different preparation to find the best way to spin the yarn. So I tried both with hand-combed top and hand-carded rolags.

The yarn I used was a beautiful dark grey mixbreed of Swedish finewool and Rya. The fleece got a gold medal at the 2017 Swedish fleece championships and I snatched it at the auction.

Hand-combed top

A ball of dark grey hand-combed wool with specks of colour in it. — Hand-combed top with sari silk

Before I started combing, I realized that there would be a problem with drawing the top off the comb. When you draw, you usually get the longest fibers first. This would mean that I would get all the sari silk bunched up in the end of the top. And this is exactly what happened. The sari silk was also more streaks of colour than tweedy specks. In addition to that, a lot of sari silk had got stuck in the tines of the combs.

I spun the yarn on a supported spindle and plied it on the fly. Just as I had suspected, the sari silk was unevenly spread across the yarn.

A spindle with dark grey yarn and some coloured specks. — Tweed yarn spun from hand-combed top and plied on the fly on a supported spindle. Almost all of the sari silk is hidden closest to the shaft.

Hand-carded rolag

Carding was a lot nicer than combing. I teased the locks by combinb, together with the sari silk. I pulled the wool off the combs tuft by tuft and loaded them on the cards and carded away. The sari silk was evenly spread across the rolag and it looked beautiful.

A rolag of dark grey wool with coloured specks in it. — A beautiful tweed rolag

I spun it the same way as I had spun the combed tops. I had to pay extra attention to the drafting. Usually, I stay away from nepps when I prepare for carding and I remove any nepps when I see them along the spinning. But this time I wanted to keep them in and I had to watch the yarn carefully so that the yarn didn’t break or get lumpy. But it did turn out beautifully.

A spindle with dark grey yarn with coloured specks. — Tweed yarn spun from hand-carded rolags and plied on the fly on a supported spindle. The sari silk is evenly spread throughout the tweed yarn. Spindle from Malcolm Fielding.

Thoughts

There are clear differences between the finished yarns. Structurewise of course, the yarn spun from carded rolags is fluffier and softer and the yarn spun from combed top is stronger and shinier. But also you can see the difference in the tweed structure. The yarn spun with carded rolags has the sari silk more evenly distributed. The yarn spun from combed top has the sari silk unevenly distributed.

It is even more obvious in a knitted swatch. I knit it with the same needle gauge and with the same amount of stitches and rows. You can see the sari silk evenly distributed on the left swatch knitted with yarn spun with carded rolags. The fabric is a bit denser than the one to the right. It also feels softer. To the right is the swatch knit from the yarn spun with combed top. You can see that the sari silk is more dense at the bottom and less so at the top. The sari silk is also less obvious in this swatch since it is combed into the top and spun more as streaks of colour than specks. The sari silk to the left ‘pops’ more.

Two dark grey knitted swatches. — Swatching: Yarn from carded rolags on the left and combed top on the right.

Even if I suspected that the results would be different, I needed to feel it and see it. Only when I experience the difference in real time can I really appreciate it and learn something from it: I learn how fiber behaves and how these fibers in particular behave. My hands need to know the fiber to be able to spin the wool into its best yarn. After this experiment, I think I have a clue to how to accomplish that.

What’s next?

My plan now is to spin the whole fleece into yummy skeins of 3-ply tweed yarn. I will spin it with longdraw from carded rolags on my spinning wheel. I will probably make it a bit thicker, perhaps sport weight yarn. Also, I may use slightly less sari silk per rolag, I prefer it to be more subtle than in the swatch.

I also have secret plans to design a garment to fit the structure and feeling of the yarn.

I went from not having given tweed a second thought to planning to spin a whole fleece into tweed yarn and designing a garment to match it. That wouldn’t have happened without the spinalong. Thank you PLY magazine and 51 yarns!

Happy spinning!

You can follow me on several social media:

My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
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. You can subscribe or get an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow.
On Patreon you can get early access to new videos. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
Follow me on Instagram. I announce new blog posts and post lots of woolliness.