Posted on

Victorian walking skirt

A woman spinning to make her skirt twirl. The skirt is light beige and she is wearing an embroidered jacket in the same colour. There is snow on the ground.

Sometimes you just need to make something, have had the making of it sizzling in your hands. This happened when I watched Bernadette Banner’s tasteful video about making a modern length Victorian walking skirt. Spoiler alert: Apart from an occasional skirt twirl, there is no spinning in this post.

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a video by Bernadette Banner, a costume designer with a huge YouTube account where she documents the exploration, reconstruction and reinterpretation of fashion history. In the video she explores how she can create an Edwardian walking skirt in a contemporary length. For some reason I was totally fascinated by the project. I do have a soft spot for the late 19th century fashion, and I realized I needed to make a skirt for myself.

The ensemble

I am very happy with the result and astounded that it all went so well. It must be because of all the hand stitching. In the pictures I am wearing the skirt with a linen shift underneath, from the Berta’s flax guild. I don’t think it is visible, but it does a lot for the presentation of the skirt. I bought the bloomers a couple of weeks ago at a textile sale after the death of a textile antiquarian and reenactor.

A woman twirling in the snow. She is wearing a light beige skirt, flat on the front and gathered at the back, and a fitted jacket with embroidered knitted sleeves.
A woman twirling in the snow. She is wearing a light beige skirt, flat on the front and gathered at the back, and a fitted jacket with embroidered knitted sleeves.
A woman twirling in the snow. She is wearing a light beige skirt, flat on the front and gathered at the back, and a fitted jacket with embroidered knitted sleeves.
Flat front and gathered back for a silhouette typical for the Victorian era.

The jacket is my creation, including spindle spinning, two-end knitting and embroidery of the sleeves, weaving the bands and hand sewing the bodice. And some machine sewing. The blouse on the indoor pictures once belonged to one of my Austrian great-grandmothers and should be contemporary with the skirt model.

The model

Bernadette refers In her video to a pattern from Truly Victorian, and that’s the pattern I bought too. I did browse through the description, but for the most part I followed Bernadette’s clever guidance in the video.

A black and white picture of a woman sitting in a chair. She is wearing a light skirt and a blouse with lace and frills.
A black and white picture of a woman leaning on in a chair. She is wearing a light skirt and a blouse with lace and frills. A pair of white bloomers are visible underneath the skirt.
A black and white picture of a woman sitting in a chair. She is wearing a light skirt and a blouse with lace and frills. She is inspecting the lining of the skirt, with printed roses.
The Victorian walking skirt in a modern length is finished! With pockets and rose lining. The blouse once belonged to one of my Austrian great- grandmothers and should be contemporary with the skirt model.

The skirt has seven gores, a simple waistband and a 20 centimeter [8 inch] stiffener panel at the bottom of the skirt. Bernadette has shortened the ankle length original model to about 60 centimeters [24 inches] from the waist, and added the stiffener at the new length. I chose a similar length for my skirt. Like Bernadette, I also added side pockets. The fitting is flat at the front and sides and gathered at the center back, giving the skirt a bell shape.

Fabrics

My main fabric was a wool/linen fishbone twill from an Austrian weaving mill, available for the members of the Berta’s flax guild. Earlier this winter I finished a pair of trousers using the same fabric. I bought a linen/cotton fabric with printed pink roses on Swedish eBay for the lining. I am a firm believer in roses for any lining. For the stiffener I used an antique coarse linen fabric, also from Berta’s flax guild. And oh, a diagonally striped scrap fabric for pockets.

Two fabrics and a pattern – One natural linen colour with pink rose prints, one fishbone twill in the same natural linen colour. The pattern shows two skirts and the title 1898 Walking Skirt.
A wool/linen fishbone twill for the main fabric and a linen/cotton rose print for the lining of the Victorian walking skirt.

The wool/linen fabric is drapey and heavy, as is the antique linen fabric I used as a stiffener at the bottom of the skirt. All in all the skirt weighs one kilo.

Basting

The skirt is flatlined, meaning that the main fabric and the lining are sewn together for every gore, as opposed to a lined fabric which is made up of two separate garments – one in the main fabric and one in the lining – and then sewn together at the edges. Apparently this technique was common in the Victorian era.

To succeed with flatlining without creases or bubbles, I basted every main fabric and lining counterpart together. This of course took time, but made the result so much neater and the process so much more relaxed than with a million pins. An I enjoyed sitting on the floor with the gores spread like sunrays around me, basting my little heart out. Once all the pieces were basted – main fabric gores with the lining, and the stiffener with more lining, I assembled them with my sewing machine, a 1965 Husqvarna 2000, way younger than the skirt model.

Pressing

You may have heard this a thousand times, and so have I: Be sure to press your seams neatly. This time I did. I knew from when I sewed the pants in the same fabric that it is a bit mischievous, so I pressed the flatlined seams thoroughly with a towel and steam. And it did the trick. It really is such a simple technique, but often neglected.

Trimming and hand felling

Every seam was now four fabrics thick, which is not ideal. I can’t change that, but I can ease the bulk by trimming the seam allowances. For the gores I trimmed the lining to be able to hand fell the seam allowance of the main fabric over and around it. Seven times. I didn’t bother hand felling anything that would eventually be hidden by the stiffener, though.

Close-up of a person sewing by hand.
Close-up of a person sewing by hand.
The antique linen stiffener is trimmed underneath the rose linin (left)g, that I am hand felling onto the gore lining (right).

The gathering at the back was a bit fiddly with the flatlined fabrics, but not much more than it would be with a single fabric. It looked a bit meager at first, but when I put the skirt on it was just right. I sewed the waistband onto the wrong side with the sewing machine and hand felled it on the right side.

When I sewed the skirt together with the stiffener at the bottom I trimmed the lining on the skirt part and the stiffener on the panel part. A thorough pressing and presto, a neat bottom seam. The final touch was the hand felling of the top of the stiffener panels.

Needle in hand

With the hand felling no seams and no raw edges are visible on either the right or the wrong side of the skirt. Oh, the satisfaction! And I quite enjoyed the hand stitching. A natural colour linen thread that I waxed, an antique silver thimble (from 1885, so contemporary-ish with the dress model) and a cushion on the floor and I was stitching away across the roses, happy as a clam.

Close-up of a person sewing by hand. A silver thimble is visible on her left middle finger. She is wearing a natural white cabled wool sweater.
I’m hand felling the panel lining onto the gore lining. To the left you can see the hand felled seam allowances of the gores.

Another sweet thing about hand stitching is the time it gives me to plan ahead. With a machine seam, anything can go remarkably wrong in a second – a fly sewn onto a trouser leg or a piece sewn back to front. I actually did sew the back pieces of the skirt panels the wrong way (one the machine), but with the tendency of the main fabric to fray I didn’t’ t want to risk ripping the seam, so I kept it that way (and attached the stiffener panels the wrong way too to match). But when I sewed by hand, the slow speed gives me the time to see and plan ahead. Many times I didn’t even have to pin the seam allowances, I could just fold them as I went. There will be more hand sewing!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write weekly posts, mainly about spinning. Do subscribe!
  • I share essay-style writing on Substack. Come and have a look!
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for joyful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons are an important way to cover the costs, 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.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Be Kind five-day challenge

Today I offer you my brand new and free Be Kind five-day challenge. Every day for five days you will receive a theme to explore with the purpose of finding your inner spinning guide and being kind to yourself.

Enroll in Be Kind here!

In this practical challenge you will get five text lessons over five days where I encourage you to be kind to yourself while you explore your spinning process. In each lesson I give you a background, an example and a task to work with.

What it’s about

The purpose of the challenge is for you to find ways that work for you, in your context, your skill level and with the tools you have. The goal is to explore your spinning process with an open mind. You can take this challenge at any spinning level. The challenge is just about you and your process.

To take part you need

  • a spinning project in any stage from raw fleece to yarn.
  • Around 30 minutes a day to work with the challenge
  • A clean and dry jam jar
  • pen and paper.

What you will do

You invest in this course as much or as little as you want to. Through my introduction and examples I encourage you to make your own challenge from the context you are in right now. You are welcome to explore the project you are working on at the moment, through the different themes in the challenge. There is also an opportunity to learn from other spinners who take part in the challenge and to extend the challenge beyond the five days and make a routine of exploring your wool on your terms.

The challenge is in written English, but you are welcome to write your comments in any language you prefer. Most of us can use a translate app to read comments in foreign languages.

I hope you love the Be Kind challenge!

Enroll here!

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write weekly posts, mainly about spinning. Do subscribe!
  • I share essay-style writing on Substack. Come and have a look!
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons are an important way to cover the costs, 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.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

2024 recap

A year has gone and it’s time for a 2024 recap – a walk through the posts and projects during the year. Pour yourself a cuppa and dive in!

In the beginning of this year I wrote about my intentions for the years. These were

  • Write, write and write some more
  • Follow a textile
  • Connect with fibery people.

I did lots of writing, both for my book and for other purposes.

Writing Listen to the wool

I have had my book Listen to the Wool in my heart for many years, but after I signed a contract with a U.S. publisher in October 2023 it has been for real. I have written regularly, but the writing took new proportions from March and then during the summer until I handed it in to my editor half-way through September. And of course I wrote the writing process here on the blog.

A writing retreat in March, writing through the summer and photo shoots for the book.

In The anatomy of a chapter I explored the winding ways through a chapter and all its qualities, textures and secret passage ways. I went on a Writing retreat in March and stayed in a tiny house and had the time and the space to just write my little heart out without bother anyone. And do some dancing. I also invited you Behind the scenes of some of the photo sessions my husband and book photographer Dan and I did. Finally, in Press send I took you to a second writing retreat where I finished the manuscript by reading it aloud. It took eleven hours.

Writing on Substack

In May and June I took the River of Words online writing course by Beth Kempton and started a Substack account where I published most of the pieces I wrote during the course. Since then I have been writing there regularly and I invite you to come and have a read. If this blog is where I write mainly about wool and spinning and an occasional other craft, Substack is the space where I write for the sake of writing.

Fulling

Through a few different fulling projects I have followed a fleece from fleece through yarn, weaving and eventually fulling. I presented the Fulling candidates I had for my weekend At the fulling mill with my wool traveling club in May. I turned three of the fulled fabrics into Fulled pillowcases.

At the fulling mill, fulled pillow cases and a Gute weave fulled by foot.

One of the fabrics that didn’t full very successfully in the mill got a rematch in a tub where I spent a few hours Walking waulking.

People and sheep

In Into the forest, Unwritten, unread, Doris and Härvor and I shear, I took you through a few of the visits Dan and I made to sheep owners to photograph a few Swedish sheep breeds. I also wrote about Sheep with stories, where the stories often were told to me by sheep owners.

My friend Lena is shearing Frida, one of her Dalapäls sheep. To the right, Milis’ Åsen forest sheep.

I said no to most course inquiries, but I did teach my five-day course A spindle a day at Sätergläntan Crafting institute. This was the fifth year I taught it and as always I learned a lot in the time I spent with the students. I also published two short lectures, Tease your wool and Card your wool. Through the writing courses I have taken I have also connected to other writers and got lots of inspiration from them.

Hands in the fibers

While I have invested most of my time on writing the book, I have had some time to dig my hands into fibers as well. Mainly wool:

Whipping wool for a photo shoot, two Gestrike yarns for a secret project and my shared walking wheel (where I spin the yarn I whipped).

I have also had some time for exploring both silk and flax:

Other crafts

After I had handed in the manuscript to my editor I got a rush of crafting inspiration. I have done lots of sewing:

Some sashiko stitches, some sewing and some embroidered tweed mitens.

A little embroidery and sashiko stitching in A simple letter, Sashiko pocket and Embroidered tweed mittens, some Japanese bookbinding and a contemplation of crafting people in Hearts of slöjd.

And, on demand, a post about Cold baths.

2.One of my daily joys is cold bathing. This is from the December solstice of 2022.

Listen to the wool

A couple of weeks ago I got three suggestions for the front cover of my book Listen to the wool, and after the new year I expect to get an edited manuscript from my editor to dive in to, probably more than once. I look forward to it, even if I am a little scared too. But with my editor and my agent having my back I know I am in good hands, as is the book. I have no release date yet, but I am thinking the second half of 2025.

I will keep writing about spinning and other occasional crafts on the blog but also on Substack for the sake of writing. You are welcome to both of these spaces, all free of charge.

Thank you for reading what I write and for you sweet notes of appreciation. They mean the world to me.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write weekly posts, mainly about spinning. Do subscribe!
  • I share essay-style writing on Substack. Come and have a look!
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons are an important way to cover the costs, 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.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Substack: The daughters of the lake

Women hanging from a buoy rod in a lake. They wear mittens and hats. Photo by Pernilla Pernsjö

Today I have a solstice poem for you straight from the cold bath. On Substack: The daughters of the lake. About the beauty of a community and the friendship through water. Enjoy!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write weekly posts, mainly about spinning. Do subscribe!
  • I share essay-style writing on Substack. Come and have a look!
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons are an important way to cover the costs, 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.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Sewing

When I was in my twenties I used to sew a lot of my clothes, mainly fitted dresses and jackets. When I now return to sewing in my fifties after a long hiatus I realize I’m a different sewist than I used to.

My mother used to sew clothes for me when I grew up. I remember asking her for a certain design for the last day of school every year and she managed to realize my ideas. I learned a lot from both her and from craft lessons in school and was quite independent when I got my own sewing machine in my early twenties. She is still going strong – a Husqvarna 2000 from the 1960s, weighing roughly 17 kilos [37 pounds].

Josefin wearing a warm dress with a slit, underneath a brown jacket.
Josefin wearing a forest green shiny dress with a green and gold suede top. She has golden flower buds in her short hair.
I sewed the dress and jacket for a wedding a week after our own wedding in 1998. The green dress was for the graduation party after I had finished four years of interpreter training, in 1999. I think I created the pattern for this myself.

Cranky and hangry

My problem with sewing, though, was that I couldn’t stop. I continued way past my limit of energy and got crankier and crankier. Many times my husband gently took my hand and brought me to the kitchen to eat before I continued and hurt myself or ruin my work. I never got angry with people (at least not to their faces), but I could nearly tear fabric apart when it didn’t do what I wanted it to. Most of the times while hangry.

The wedding dress

The last larger project I sew was a wedding dress for my best friend Elli. Just a couple of years earlier she had given me a folder with a correspondence course in pattern construction that she in turn had got from her fiancé’s mother. After I had gone through the course I was fairly confident I could make a pattern and fit it to her body. The only thing I couldn’t do was to adjust it for a pregnancy, and so I told her I wouldn’t take any responsibility for the dress if she were to get pregnant with her second child before the wedding.

A person embroidering a monogram, EE onto white silk.
A person sewing dressed buttons onto the back of a wedding dress on a mannequin.
I added something blue to the underskirt for my friend Elli’s wedding dress and lots of fabric buttons and button loops.

Six weeks before the wedding she came to my house to pick up the dress. We hugged, and she whispered into my ear: ”I’m pregnant”, and I replied in hers: ”So am I”. I had done the test that same morning and was over the moon. The wedding took place and the dress did fit the bride. I sew a few baby clothes with epic failure after that, and decided to stop sewing – I had no dedicated sewing room and I didn’t want to risk dropping pins on the floor with a baby crawling around.

Back behind the Husqvarna

This was 22 years ago and recently I have found my way back to sewing. This summer I sew a linen pinafore dress and two pairs of trousers from Chinese vintage handwoven fabrics. I made myself a sewing studio in the shade on the balcony and enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Josefin modeling a bright blue pinafore dress with a light beige hem with printed garden flowers.
Josefin adjusting a spinning wheel in a castle garden. She is wearing blue wide trousers.
Josefin spinning on a great wheel outdoors. She is wearing a pair of blue sailor style trousers.
A linen pinafore dress with pounded garden flowers and two pairs of trousers in vintage Chinese cotton fabrics.

I loved both the trouser models and the vintage fabrics and bought myself enough fabric for another two pairs. These projects are waiting for spring. During the fall I have started sewing a pair of trousers and a skirt in a wool/linen blend. This week I finished the trousers, and I love them.

Wool/linen twill trousers

The wool/linen is a herringbone twill with lots of lustre. I bought it from the Berta’s flax guild. It comes from an Austrian mill and is made from local fibers. The fabric is very soft and the drape marvelous.

A sewing pattern in Japanese and an iPhone with a translation app.
Copse-up of a person basting a hem.
Close-up of a pocket opening. The lining has a rose print.
I created the pattern from a Japanese book of modular patterns. Some basting and some thorough pressing of seams are details can do wonders for the result. Notice the rose fabric in the pockets.

Just to make sure I overcomplicated things, I used a pattern books of module based patterns. In Japanese. The Google Translate app was my friend and through the very clear illustrations I could figure out what to do when and where.

My new pants, sewed with a wool/linen tweed from a Japanese modular pattern book. The shawl pattern comes from Sylvia McFadden and you can read about my version here.

This week I finished the trousers and they have that loose fit I love. The distance between the top of the zipper and the waist button is a bit long, so I added a hook and eye to avoid flashing my belly. Other than that everything went very smooth and I’m still shocked to be honest.

Wise and uncranked

As I sew, pinned, basted and lined, I kept wondering when things would start going wrong, when the tension and frustration would flatten me like a rolling pin. But they never did. I had one minor ripping incident, but that was it. I saw it, realized what had happened and dealt with it. I realized that the memories I have of sewing come from 20+ years ago. I am a different person now, with a calmness and with an inner wise woman who tells me to listen to my heart and learn from my mistakes. I am grateful sewing came back to me, especially at a time when I know where to find high quality vintage fabrics in natural materials.

I still have a couple of meters left of the wool/linen fabrics, plus four meters of antique linen fabric, also from Berta’s guild. And an indigo fermentation vat underneath my desk. I wonder if they marry well…

Happy sewing!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write weekly posts, mainly about spinning. Do subscribe!
  • I share essay-style writing on Substack. Come and have a look!
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons are an important way to cover the costs, 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.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

All the projects

Today I show you all the projects I have going on at the same time, perhaps as a way to get away for a second from stress at work and a world that isn’t always kind.

I cleaned out my bags and baskets of unfinished when I was putting together the last pieces of the manuscript for my book back in September. There was too much clutter in my mind. Once I had sent the manuscript to my editor I had time to craft, time that I had spent on writing for the past year, time I hadn’t allowed myself to craft anything other than words. Now I got that time back, a wave of projects came to me, many of which had lived in my mind for a while, projects I knew I wanted to explore. Techniques, designs or ideas that I needed to have gone through my mind.

Spedetröja/Danish night sweater

The spedetröja or Danish night sweater, a traditional sweater in Denmark and the southernmost regions of Sweden. A simple construction with patterns in panels and a knit and purl star pattern as the main event. I knit it in a handspun Svärdsjö yarn and I loved the result. Quite time consuming with the 2.5 millimeter needles and 700 grams of handspun yarn, but a lovely knit.

Two natural white sleeves mid-knit, with two bals of yarn between them. The sleeves are made in a knit and purl star motif.

A muddy dye bath

My new project within that project was to dye it, with extractions from my homegrown Japanese indigo. I hadn’t made a vat before and it turned out to be difficult. I gathered the 8 grams of extracted Maruba indigo from my 2023 and 2024 harvests and played the chemist all over the bathroom. In all the stress of getting things right I managed to get some of the proportions wrong and the many times dipped sweater stayed undyed, with perhaps a light tint of mud.

I shed a tear or two but reminded myself of my friend Cecilia’s kind words, “You can always overdye it”. And I did. I got commercially grown indigo and set up a new vat, with the right proportions this time. I dipped and I dipped and there was no blue in sight. More tears were shed. Cecilia guided me into making a fermentation vat out of my mud bath and that’s where I am at the moment. The whole project makes me sad, but I stick to Cecilia’s wise words and knowledge.

Apart from the sweater I had prepared a piece of wool/linen twill from a small Austrian mill that I wanted to dye. My plan is to sew a bodice. But I don’t want to dip it in the vat until I know I can rely on it. Time will tell. As will the mud bath.

A contemporary Victorian walking skirt

The same bolt of wool/linen twill is the material for a Victorian walking skirt I stumbled upon about a year ago. I have sewn for many years, mainly clothes for myself, but stopped when my first child was born. I didn’t want to risk having pins on the floor. He’s almost 22 now and has his own apartment. He may still crawl around on our floor from time to time, but he and his sister, are big enough now to handle more complicated things than pins on the floor. As it happens, he is sitting right in front of me, sewing a laundry bag out of an old seat cover. And he is wise enough to baste. Anyway, I have found my way back to sewing lately and I’m enjoying it tremendously.

A Victorian walking skirt in a wool/linen twill (I honestly don’t know which side to use as the right side they’re both so beautiful), and a cotton/linen rose fabric as lining.

I cut the fabric for the walking skirt – in a contemporary length –feeling giddy of the idea of sewing it. Just the concept of something called a walking skirt from a time and a social tier when women weren’t supposed to walk for the sake of walking and the fashion didn’t allow a comfortable stride. A world about to change, giving the vote to women just a couple of decades later, women taking more independent steps into the world. Who wouldn’t want a walking skirt then? Also, the model is just smashing with the flat front and the gathered back. I eBayed a linen/cotton fabric with pink roses for the lining. I’m definitely not a rose person, but I firmly believe in scrumptious lining patterns, and so roses it is.

Trousers in Japanese

There was enough fabric for more projects, and I decided on a pair of trousers. The idea came quite recently – I had made two pairs of pants this summer from vintage handwoven Chinese fabrics and bought more for another two pairs, and when I saw the remaining fabric after I had cut the pieces for the skirt I knew a pair of trousers would be the thing. My mother sew lots of clothes for me when I was growing up, but never trousers. She was of the opinion that they were complicated to make and rarely had a comfortable fit. So I didn’t sew trousers either. I’m making up for that trouserless sewing experience now!

Close-up of a sewing machine outdoors, with a hand steering a blue fabric underneath the presser foot. A rosy fabric in the background.
Josefin on the floor cutting out fabric. A spinning wheel by the window in the background.
Some trouser sewing on the balcony in July (left), with rosy pocket lining. The sewing machine is my 1965 Husqvarna 2000, weighing about 17 kilos [37.5 pounds], and she works like a dream. To the right I’m cutting out fabric for another pair of trousers.

I had bought a book of a modular system for trouser designs – different styles, fits and details you could match to build your trousers according to your own preferences. A challenge no doubt, and one I was glad to take on. The biggest challenge, though, was that the book and the patterns are written in Japanese… Instead of letting that stop me I crawled around on the floor, chasing the right pieces for the pants on the three gigantic pattern sheets, with my Google Translate app as my saviour.

A sewing pattern written in Japanese with a phone showing the Google Translate app.
Why make sewing easy when you can cut the pattern from a book in a language and a writing system you don’t know?

And oh, I just had to start a sashiko mending project for a pair of much loved jeans. Despite an aching left thumb after pushing the needle through the denim so many times I did it in just a couple of days. It’s finished now and I’m very pleased with it.

A walking leg, dressed in jeans. There is a grid on the thigh, marking where the stitches go in an ongoing sashiko mending.
A jean leg on a clothes line. There is a sashiko stitch star motif sewn onto the thigh.
I needed my trousers mid-mending and went for a walk. Now they are finished and the help lines are gone.

There is spinning too, don’t you worry. I have started spinning a z-plied yarn for two-end (or twined) knitting and I really love the result. I have spent many hours on the floor teasing the wool with my mini combs before carding and spinning.

Rose brown 2-ply yarn.
A rose brown Värmland fleece has turned into a sweet Z-plied yarn for two-end (twined) knitting.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write weekly posts, mainly about spinning. Do subscribe!
  • I share essay-style writing on Substack. Come and have a look!
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons are an important way to cover the costs, 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.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Substack: Dear you

Today I play with the idea of writing a letter to someone in the future. In the letter Dear you I find bittersweetness, acorn hats and treasures in fern. Who would you write to?

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write weekly posts, mainly about spinning. Do subscribe!
  • I share essay-style writing on Substack. Come and have a look!
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons are an important way to cover the costs, 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.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Panther and Starling

I got a fleece black as the night and transformed it into two yarns showcasing its superpowers – one strong and shiny and one soft and warm. I call them Panther and Starling.

If you are a patron (or if you want to become one) you can see a demonstration of how I spin these yarns in my November 2024 video postcard.

Every year there is a Swedish fleece championships and I like to buy a couple of fleeces at the auction following the prize ceremony. At the 2022 championships I bought a black Rya lamb’s fleece as a challenge to myself.

Long staples of black wool
25 centimeter staples of a black Rya lamb’s fleece.

I think it is difficult to spin dark fleeces since I can’t see the fibers properly. Also, I never wear black. But I had made my decision and the beautiful fleece was in my stash. For a long time. I had postponed spinning it, but this fall I decided to spin it before it got too old and brittle.

Separate

The shine in this black rya fleece is remarkable, with strong outercoat fibers of 23–27 centimeters and soft and fine undercoat fibers of 10–15 centimeters. I decided to spin two yarns, one worsted spun warp yarn and one woolen spun knitting yarn.

Three rolags of black wool with specks of colour in them, and two black combed tops. Autumn leaves around them.
Carded rolags of the shorter fibers, together with recycled sari silk, and combed tops of the longer fibers.

I did the preparation in two steps for both of the yarns. To begin, I combed the wool. I didn’t doff the outercoat in a long top, though, instead I just pulled out the longest fibers and saved them in a box where I had marked the cut ends and tip ends of the fibers. In the next step I pulled the remaining (shorter) fibers off the combs and set them aside. I re-combed the longest fibers and dizzed them off the combs and rolled the top into bird’s nests. The last preparation step was the undercoat; I carded it together with small tufts of recycled sari silk.

Outercoat and undercoat

I say longer and shorter fibers here, not outercoat and undercoat. In my first trials I made sure to get mainly the outercoat in the top and mainly the undercoat in the rolag. But the yarn I made from the undercoat felt a bit too coarse, and so I used only the finest fibers for the rolags.

A person spinning black yarn on a spinning wheel.
I’m spinning the carded rolags with an English longdraw. (screenshot).

This meant that there was a spectrum of fiber lengths – both outercoat and undercoat – in the combed top. You can see it in the bird’s nests above – the very shiny part is most probably outercoat and the more matte is most probably undercoat fibers.

A woman making a face as she is trying to break a strong piece of yarn.
The worsted spun yarn is very strong and it nearly broke my skin when I tried to break it (Screenshot).

Even if there is a spectrum of fiber lengths in the worsted yarn, it is still very strong and I will trust it as a weaving yarn. At least when it comes to strength, its inclination to cling to neighbouring warp threads remains to be seen.

Of the total weight, 60 per cent was the worsted yarn. It might have been different if I had chosen to divide it more strictly by fiber type. The total yield (raw fleece to finished yarn) was 65 per cent, which is higher than my average 55 per cent.

Panther and Starling

I reached the bottom of the wool basket this week and plied the last skein of each sort. I love how they turned out. It was a challenge to spin the black fibers, especially this time of year, but I did it. The long fibers were a challenge to handle, but my hands got used to working with them in the end.

A pile of black skeins in the snow.
Panther and Starling – nine skeins of strong and shiny warp yarn and five skeins of soft and warm knitting yarn.

I call the worsted yarn Panther – strikingly shiny, black and strong. The softness and the coloured speckles on the woolen yarn begged me to call it Starling, and so here they are – Panther and Starling.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write weekly posts, mainly about spinning. Do subscribe!
  • I share essay-style writing on Substack. Come and have a look!
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons are an important way to cover the costs, 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.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Walking waulking

In September my friend Cecilia and I visited the Skansen open air museum, where one of perhaps five fulling mills in Sweden is situated. Outside the mill the visitors were welcome into a wooden tub for some walking waulking.

We were thrilled when we saw the fulling mill, I knew it was there but I had never seen it. Cecilia hopped right into the wooden tub outside the mill and started waulking with her feet. I was reluctant at first, but Cecilia persuaded me to hop in the tub. I did, and feeling the wooden tub and the wet wool against my bare feet was surprisingly thrilling.

A woman stand-ins in a wooden tub, trouser legs folded up. A clothes line behind her.
A woman walking in a wooden tub. Two women sitting beside her, dresser in historical costumes.
Outside the fulling mill at Skansen open air museum the visitors are welcome to try walking waulking in a wooden tub.

As I splashed my feet in the tub I thought of a failed fulling experience at another fulling mill.

Fulling mill in Dala-Floda

Back in May I visited the fulling mill in Dala-Floda with my wool traveling club. I had brought six fabrics to full, three of which were woven with my handspun yarn. The fabric I had the highest hopes for was woven with Gute wool. I spun it back in 2018, and made a woven swatch that I fulled, just to see how it behaved. It fulled very fast and beautifully and I decided to use the yarn to weave a fabric with the intention of fulling it.

A piece of stiff paper with staples of wool, yarn samples and woven and knitted swatches. One swatch has been fulled and is smaller and denser than the others.
My wool board for the fulling mill with the evenly fulled woven swatch top right.

The strange thing was that the Gute weave was the weave that was fulled the least in the fulling mill – only 23 per cent of the total area. This annoyed me since I knew it had fulled so evenly and easily when I first spun it. My theory was that the lanolin must have stiffened and worked as a barrier against the fulling.

A fabric in a very loose sett.
A fabric in a somewhat loose sett.
Enormous forces with only wood, wool and water at the fulling mill back in May. The Gute weave raw (center) and fulled at the fulling mill (right). The shrinkage was 23 per cent.

A tub in the living room

A couple of weeks after the tub waulking in the September sun, I decided to try it at home with my Gute weave, with the addition of soap. I figured that if the soap could clean the lanolin off the weave on top of acting as a fulling agent, chances were that the fabric would shrink properly.

Two feet walking in a pink plastic tub. On the floor a kettle, a bottle of soap and a water jug.
No wooden tub and no September sun, but still a fully functioning tub for waulking my Gute weave.

I had no wooden tub and no fulling mill backdrop. Instead I spent half an hour every evening for a week or so waulking while listening to the audio version of Jane Eyre. I was quite generous with both warm water and soap to speed the fulling process up a bit. After a total of perhaps three hours I was happy with the result. The fabric had shrunk 73 per cent from the raw weave, and very evenly, just like my original swatch had. What was once more of a net than a weave had now become a heavily fulled 4 millimeter thick fabric.

A densely fulled fabric.
The weave is finished after the walking waulking, 28 x 150 centimeters and 4 millimeters thick.

When I first got the idea to full the fabric my plan was to sew a vest from it. But now, at only 28 x 150 centimeters [11 x 60inches] there won’t be enough fabric for a vest. Even if there was, it would probably have been too dense and warm for me. Perhaps I’ll sew a pair of mittens and add some embroidery. The possibilities are many.

Read about the fulled pillowcases I made from three of the other weaves I waulked in the fulling mill in May.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write weekly posts, mainly about spinning. Do subscribe!
  • I share essay-style writing on Substack. Come and have a look!
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons are an important way to cover the costs, 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.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Substack: Ant Myra

Something peculiar happened on my bike ride to work the other day. I met an ant with superpowers. I decided to call her Myra and she kept me company during the rainy bike ride. Read the whole piece on Substack: Ant Myra.

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write weekly posts, mainly about spinning. Do subscribe!
  • I share essay-style writing on Substack. Come and have a look!
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons are an important way to cover the costs, 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.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • 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.