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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.
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Flax retting success

Last weekend offered the perfect weather to process my flax. I had water retted it in a kiddy pool like I did last year and it had dried, got rained on and dried again a few times.

Throug all my 11 years of growing an experimental flax patch I realize I have underretted it. It became particularly apparent last year, when my beautiful and plentiful harvest resulted in one thin strick of hackled flax. The quality was better than any I had managed before, but the yield was saddening. This year I stretched out of my comfort zone and aimed for a higher degree of retting. It was a nervous endeavour since I knew that overretting ruins the whole harvest.

Planting

I planted the seeds in early May, with the seed variety Nathalie. I had quite a bit from an earlier seed harvest, and I topped it up with a bag from a local flax husbandry society. This year I grew my flax in two small beds in my community garden allotment, of a total of around 2 square meters. The plants grew tall and even.

Retting

Even if all the steps of the process from soil management to hackling are vital, retting is the one that can really make or break the whole harvest. Previous years I have dew retted and been anxious that someone would step on the neatly spread plants on the lawn. That may be the reason it has been underretted.

Close-up of harvested flax, seed pods in green and light brown.
A strict of flax between two feet, holding a seed ripple in place. Seed pods all around the arrangement.
After harvesting I dry my flax and ripple the seeds.

This was my second year of water retting. After the harvest I dried the flax in merry little bundles by length. Last year I remember it rained a lot in August, but this year it was sunny and warm and my flax dried in just a few days, which made it possible to ret it earlier when it was warmer outdoors.

A blue kiddy pool with bundles of flax under the water, weighted by a compost grid and a couple of bricks.
Bundles of flax drying against a tree trunk.
I build a fake stream to water ret my flax. By placing the bundles in a kiddy pool and changing one bucketful of water every day I simulate a moving body of water. The retting losens the glue so the fibers can be separated from the cellulose core. Once the flax is properly retted (8 days this season) I dry it again.

Just as last year I water retted it by making a fake stream with a kiddy pool and daily bucketfuls of fresh water. I was very brave and waited longer this year, I knew I had some retting degree to spare before it would be ruined. And I was right! On day 8 of retting I decided I was done, the fibers loosened smoother from the stems than they had in previous years.

Breaking and scutching

It was fascinating to break this flax. The fibers loosened so easily from the core and the pile of core waste underneath my brake was bigger than ever before. As I worked the break handle up and down, my smart watch asked if I wanted to register indoor running. I declined. Through the breaking alone I could see much more of the bare fibers than I could previous years and I knew this was a good sign.

A person breaking a bundle of flax in an antique flax brake.
Bundles of broken flax, two orange shoes peeking in the background.
I use the break to break the cellulose core around which the fibers are arranged.

The same thing happened in the scutching – pieces of cellulose core flew wildly in the air as I scutched away. I managed to remove a lot more than I have previous years, and with less effort. The repetitive movements did get me bilisters though, since I forgot to remove my rings.

I scutch the broken flax to remove as much as I can of the bits of cellulose core. The skirt is second hand and eco printed with leaves of grape, Japanese maple, alder, cherry, oak and willow.

Hackling and brushing

Hackling went smoother too, with less effort and more yield than I usually get. I hackled on our balcony on the last day of summer. Meanwhile, I listened to an audiobook and suddenly all the flax had gone through both rough and fine hackle. As I stood there, hackling and swinging the bundle for the next turn, I smelled something anisy. When I turned around I noticed the fennel plants I had been swinging the flax into.

With two hackles (the finest here) I align the fibers and remove the shortest bits. The flax brush is the final touch that brings out the true shine.

The finishing touch was the flax brush, a traditional tool from Ångermanland in Sweden, to smooth down the fibers and bring out that extra shine.

I ended up with 106 grams of very high quality flax – long, fine, smooth and with only a few pieces of cellulose left. The shorter strick is the shorter fibers I got from a second hackling of the waste. I want to spin this outdoors, so I guess it will be a project for next summer, when the new flax grows in the 2025 experimental flax patch.

The quality this year was remarkable! Not my biggest yield (that was 2022 with 136 grams, this year 106), but the softest and best retted.

The day after I had hackled my flax, autumn came. The heat had calmed down and rain poured all day. When I went grocery shopping and put on my jacket for the first time in months, I felt something small and smooth in my pocket. It was some flax seeds that must have escaped from the seed bag when I planted them back in May. I smiled and thanked them for their gifts. In my home office window a bowl is filled to the brim with seed capsules, waiting for their turn to grow gold.

On my instagram you can see a reel where I process this year’s flax harvest.

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.
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Survey results: Keeping records

Two weeks ago I sent out a survey about record keeping in spinning, and today I share some interesting results.

I am currently writing a chapter about keeping records in my upcoming book Listen to the wool. I created the survey to include other perspectives on record keeping than just my own.

263 of you answered the survey and I thank you all very much for contributing to the book with thoughtful reflections about different aspects of record keeping. This was the first ever survey I have made and I have loved reading your replies. They were very valuable for my book, but I will also share some results and thoughts here.

Written and physical documentation

First of all, I was curious about what the respondents document and when. Many of them kept written records of things like tools, techniques, breed, sheep owner, and different calculations like weight and length of the yarn, and fleece to yarn yield.

The questions in the survey I sent to my email list of spinners.

When it came to physical documentation fewer people documented, but the most common type of physical documentation was by far yarn samples. The most common time for documentation was at wool preparation, spinning and after finishing the yarn. Many sheep owners also kept records at the time of shearing.

A flora of record keeping systems

I also asked the respondents to comment on their written and physical record keeping and whether they document in the same way and the same things. It turned out that there is a wide variety of ways people document and. Some respondents expressed their curiosity about other spinners’ ways of keeping records. One respondent even offered to show me their system for documentation, and I’m meeting them this weekend.

Systematic record keeping

Some seem to document very systematically with samples of staples, yarns and swatches in different techniques in books and binders, transparent plastic pockets or in a card index. Many of these respondents seemed to document the same way and the same things through all their projects. At this point I really regretted not asking for pictures of their documentation, people seemed to have so many interesting systems.

Small scale documentation

Some kept their records to a minimum, perhaps just a sample by the spinning wheel or a label on the finished skein. “I’ll spin and swatch, make a decision and plunge forward”. Some saved swatches with inventive ideas as memory aids:

“I especially love to save swatches knitted at different gauges and in different patterns. This type of documentation is useful to me. I tie knots in the yarn tail to tell me what needle size I used.”

Others developed their record keeping through the years, perhaps starting in a small scale and working up a system as they learned. Or the other way around – starting big, with lots of details documented, and making it smaller as they learned. One respondent expressed their system like this:

“I tend to document the things I find interesting and the details that I think will help me make best use of the finished yarn.”

16 per cent of the respondents didn’t do any written documentation at all and 25 per cent didn’t do any physical documentation. However, I know some people said didn’t answer the survey at all because they don’t do any documentation.

Storage issues and solution

Some respondents mentioned storage as an issue, after many years of spinning there simply wasn’t enough space to keep all the records. Some had inventive solutions for keeping and storing records: “Sample cards are great references, I keep in my mom’s old wooden recipe file box. I can easily get out a card with information about spinning a particular breed or using a specific technique to help with a future project.”

What do you use your documentation for?

There were lots of interesting answers to this question. Many respondents kept their records for their own education,

“it isn’t just about keeping a record so I can spin the same yarn at a later date, it is about a growth in my crafting.”

Some keep records to remember what they had done, especially if they knew there would be periods when they wouldn’t spin. Some kept their records for consistency and for matching yarns with other yarns. Yet some did it for nostalgic reasons.

“I always tell myself that it’s a good idea to have records. So far, they haven’t changed my life much—I’ve never really gone back and tried to re-create a yarn I made a long time ago. But it’s nice to have a record.”

I especially love this quote:

“Some times I just like to page through my records for inspiration or to see my own progress, like a photo album but for my yarn children.”

A few respondents kept their records for a combination of reasons. Here is one example:

“I use the documentation to develop my learning of handling of the wool and the creativity, but also to just allow the senses to dominate as I have my hands in the wool or the swatch, letting my thoughts rest, come and go.”

(my translation from Swedish)

“Because I should be doing it”

Some respondents expressed that they were unsure of why they were keeping records and whether they were doing it enough or the “right” way.

“I haven’t started documenting yet. I suppose I should in order to be more consistent in my spinning. Being self taught, I’m not always sure what to document for better spinning”

In this context some seem to feel a pressure to keep records, from both the spinning community and from spinning teachers. Here are a couple of examples:

“Mostly to assuage guilt that I should be doing it! (As in, this is what good spinners do, right??)”

and

“people seem to think you have to, so there’s always conversation about it”.

As a spinning teacher I take this seriously. I need to find ways to talk about why I keep records of my spinning process and encourage my students to play with their wool without feeling obligated to keep records for the sake of keeping records. What can we as a spinning community do to make people feel comfortable documenting just for themselves or not at all?

Spin for pleasure or spin for numbers?

One interesting reflection made by quite a few respondents were about a feeling of a dichotomy between keeping records and spinning for the process – that keeping records somehow stood in the way of the spinning experience and joy.

“The pleasure of spinning is the most important reason I do it. Keeping documentation is not pleasant for me. I keep minimal written information on my ravelry page for handspun.”

One respondent took the dichotomy to a deeper level in their reflections:

”I have a divided feeling towards documentation. I can enjoy pretty labels and love to be organized. But I also struggle against the feeling of what isn’t documented isn’t worth anything. So I can wish that I documented more and that I documented less? I like to document, but perhaps I wish I didn’t? I wish that not everything needed to be a documented experience to fall back on but just something pleasant that I engaged in for a while and that later was allowed to be forgotten.”

(my translation from Swedish)

For me, record keeping is no hindrance for enjoying the spinning process. Record keeping and enjoying the process coexist in my spinning and are mutually beneficial. Can it be that a feeling of record keeping as a must stands in the way of the joy of the process? Perhaps we need to reflect more over why we keep records rather than assume everybody does it because they should.

A white paper with eight different yarn samples attached to it, each with a short hand written explanation of the technique.
Eight different yarn samples from one fleece.

Again, thank you all who participated in the survey. The results really helped me sharpen the structure and content. I have now almost finished the 9th chapter of the book. After the next chapter I’m half way through the manuscript!

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. So subscribe!
  • 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

Multiteasing

For some reason I’m working on sevaral spinning projects at the moment, and it has occurred to me that I have teased most of them differently. This week I’m multiteasing!

I always tease my wool before I card it, for several reasons. The most important reason to tease, though, is to open up the fibers to make carding easier on my body and on the fibers. I like the analogy of sanding a piece of rough wood – you wouldn’t go straight to the finest grain sand paper. Instead you would start with the roughest (picking the staples), then go to a medium (teasing) and end with the finest (carding). This way is more sustainable on both your body and the fibers. It also leaves less waste.

I use different methods of teasing for different purposes and different wools, and this week of multiteasing is no different. I’ll walk you through my current projects.

Hand teasing for the yum of it

I’m spinning an Icelandic weft singles yarn for a fulling project. I separated the tog and thel (outercoat and undercoat in Icelandic wool) with my hands, so the thel that remained was quite open already. I decided to tease the staples with my hands only. The reason for this was the way I planned to turn it into a textile. The weft yarn doesn’t have the same demands of durability as a warp yarn, and I figured it would be okay with the less thorough teasing I get from teasing by hand. Another reason was simply that I loved to get my hands in the fleece, sitting on the couch rather than clamp my combing station onto the table.

Hands opening up the fibers of a bundle of wool. A basket of wool in the background.
Hand teasing separated Icelandic undercoat.

And it was indeed the loveliest teasing. There is something buttery about this Icelandic fleece, while at the same time it is a bit rustic. Since the staples had been opened a bit already through the separation of the coats, hand teasing was a very soft and light process.

A staple, an opened staple, a carded rolag and a skein of yarn.
Icelandic undercoat – separated, hand teased, carded and spun into a singles weft yarn.

The hand teased wool was easy to card and spin. The rolags were slightly more uneven than they would have if they had been teased with a tool, but in the context I didn’t mind.

Flicking away the kemp

I’m spinning a warp yarn for another weaving project, from a Gute fleece blended with recycled sari silk. Because of the kemp in the lower third of the staples I teased with a flicker. Most of the kemp stayed in the flicker and the flicked staple was silky and soft.

Hands brushing a staple of wool with a hand brush against the back of a piece of leather.
A staple, an opened staple, a carded rolag and a skein of yarn.
I’m teasing the Gute staples with a flicker to get as much of the kemp out (left). To the right the staple, a flicked staple, carded finished and the finished 2-ply warp yarn that I blended with recycled sari silk at the carding stage.

I have spun a similar yarn – a kempy Gute fleece that I blended with sari silk at the teasing stage. I teased with my combing station back then, and a lot of the short sari silk ended up in the combs, leaving more kemp in the teased wool. The flicker technique for my Current Gute fleece removed more of the kemp.

Combing station for production

I used the same Icelandic thel for another weft yarn, only bulkier. My romance with the hand teasing was over and I longed for a work horse – a combing station. Teasing the undercoat that had already been opened by the separation was a dream, as was the spinning.

A square wooden basket filled with carded rolags. One rolag is floating in the air. A skein of wool over the edge of the basket.
A staple, an opened staple, a carded rolag and a skein of yarn.
70+ hand carded rolags of Icelandic undercoat blended with sari silk (left). To the right the separated staple, the staples teased with a combing station, carded rolag and the finished singles yarn.

I blended the teased wool with recycled sari silk at the carding stage here too. The carding was very smooth and I carded over 70 rolags in one afternoon.

Mini combs for short wool

I have a fleece from Doris the Gestrike sheep that is unusually fine for the breed. The staples are quite short, and while my go-to tool for teasing is the combing station, I was worried that teasing with the large two-pitched combs would result in more waste than necessary with such short fibers. Instead, I chose a pair of single pitch mini combs.

A staple, an opened staple, a carded rolag and a skein of yarn.
Staple from Doris the Gestrike wool, staples teased with mini combs, a carded rolag and the finished 2-ply woolen knitting yarn.

I got quite small amounts of waste with the mini combs and was happy with my choice. The short fibers arranged themselves into slim and sweet rolags that I spun into a fingering weight 2-ply yarn for a secret knitting project.

Combing station again

Doris’ friend Härvor, also a Gestrike sheep, grazes the same pasture and I took both of their fleeces with me after I had helped my friend Claudia on shearing day this fall. I decided to include Härvor in the secret project. After all, they were flock friends and would make a lovely combination in a project. Since Härvor’s staples were longer than Doris’, I decided to use my work horse again, the combing station.

A staple, an opened staple, a carded rolag and a skein of yarn.
Staple, wool teased with a combing station, carded rolag and 2-ply woolen spun yarn for a secret knitting project from Härvor the Gestrike sheep.

Carding was a dream here too and the spinning smooth and joyful.

Joyful carding

In these five projects I have used different techniques in different contexts. But the aim has been the same for all of the yarns – to card even rolags in a way that is joyful for me and sustainable for my body and the fibers. To me, all the parts of the process from raw fleece to a finished yarn and textile need to be joyful. Creating a yarn is for me that whole process and not restricted to just the spinning part.

With the teasing I also open up the wool to let vegetation matter out – watching little pieces of moss, peat and seeds fall out help me come back to the wool as a gift from a living and grazing sheep. Having my hands in the wool through all the stages also help me learn about the characteristics of the wool and I become a better spinner through it.

If you think you don’t need to tease before you card, try carding one rolag with teased wool and one without, and see the difference. And do try different tools for teasing if you have them. Perhaps you find a favourite.

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. So subscribe!
  • 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

Silk and kemp

I’ve done it before, married a kempy Gute fleece with recycled sari silk with surprising success. Today I’m combining silk and kemp again, with even more success.

If you are a patron (or want to become one) you can see how I tease, blend and spin the Gute wool with sari silk in my February 2024 video postcard.

The combination wool from a primitive breed like Gute sheep, including kemp, with something as delicate as silk is quite intriguing, and I still giggle when I think about when the idea poked me in the eye a couple of years ago.

2021: First try

Back then it was a Gute lamb’s fleece. I teased the wool with my combing station, while at the same time blending it with recycled sari silk. A lot of the kemp stayed in the combs as I teased the wool. Sadly, a lot of the sari silk did too.

A person pulling grey wool off a stationary wool comb. Lots of colourful specks in the tines of the comb.
A hand holding up a grey ball of yarn with colourful specks in it.
A piece of paper with samples and swatches of grey wool and colourful silk. Hand writing that describes the wool.
Lots of the sari silk got stuck in the tines of the combs when I teased and blended the first Gute fleece back in 2021. I got a lovely little skein and did a couple of fulling tests.

The result was a surprisingly soft yarn, though, with little specks of silk next to the quirky kemp. Sadly, I only spun that one small skein as a test when I bought the fleece, and when it finally was the Gute fleece’s turn in my fleece queue, it had gone old and brittle. With a heavy heart I placed it on my garden beds as mulching. I was quite crushed by this (even if the vegetables weren’t).

2024: Second try

A year or so ago I got myself another Gute lamb’s fleece, with beautiful soft undercoat and quite a lot of kemp. This one made its turn in the fleece queue before it got brittle.

A bundle of raw wool with coarse looking staples and dirty tips.
Another Gute lamb’s fleece came home with me. Just as the first one it has lots of kemp.

This time I tried teasing it staple by staple with a flicker. And it really did the trick – by gently brushing the cut ends I got rid of a lot more kemp than I had with the combs. All that was left after the flicking were astonishingly soft fibers. Some kemp is still there, but I don’t let it bother me.

Two hands holding a staple of grey and coarse looking wool.
A brush stroking a staple of white wool.
A hand holding three pieces of wool: a staple in the middle, a bundle of coarse fibers in the bottom and a teased staple of fine and soft looking fibers in the top.
With a simple brush with the flicker I remove lots of the kemp and end up with fine and silky fibers. The rightmost image shows the original staple (middle), the flicked staple (top) and the waste in the flicker after flicking (bottom).

When I look at the flicked staples I can see that there are outercoat fibers, but very close to the fineness of the undercoat fibers. Just sweet locks of silky vanilla kindness, light as feathers and dying to spoon with some sari silk.

Two baskets with wool. Soft and white teased wool in the left, staples of coarse looking wool in the right.
Flicked (left) and unlicked (right) staples of Gute lamb’s wool.

My usual yield from raw fleece to finished yarn is around 55 per cent. I expect this yield to be lower due to the amount of kemp removed, but the result is truly astonishing and definitely worth it. Flicking staple by staple is time consuming, but I do it while bingeing Downton Abbey, and enjoy the slow movements of the flicker. Once a staple is flicked it feels like a luxurious soap against my skin.

Enter recycled sari silk

My plan was to use combs to blend the sari silk with the teased staples. However, when I tried adding the sari silk straight onto the cards I realized that it worked wonderfully well. I just pulled a staple length of the sari silk off the braid, teased it sideways to match the width of the wool on the card and placed it on top. Carding was a dream and the silk blended smoothly and evenly into the batt.

A hand dressing a hand card with white wool.
A hand card dressed with white wool and colourful silk fibers.
A hand card with wool blended with colourful silk.
I’m dressing the card with first the flicked staples and then the recycled sari silk.

When I find the rhythm I can card for ages. It’s like a dance and I swirl away to the muffled sound of brush strokes. The teased fibers make the smooth movements possible. My latest ebayed hand cards are a dream. I think they are from the -70’s, but made with old techniques. I have never experienced such smooth cards.

A hand shaping a rolag between two hand cards.
A carded rolag on top of a hand card. The wool is white and has specks of colour in it.
Shaping the gute/sari silk rolag into pure yumminess.

Woolen yarn and fulled dreams

I am spinning the rolags with an English longdraw on my spinning wheel and 2-plying it. I am spinning the yarn quite fine, around light fingering to fingering weight. As you can see in the picture below, there is still kemp in the yarn. Most of this will fall out during weaving, leaving air pockets that will make the fabric light and warm.

My plan is to weave it in tabby on my rigid heddle loom. I’m not sure how much yarn I will get, perhaps I will use it all as a warp yarn and spin some Icelandic undercoat wool the same way for the weft.

A skein of handspun light grey yarn with specks of colour. Some coarse fibers are sticking out.
A 2-ply yarn spun with English longdraw from carded rolags of Gute wool blended with recycled silk.

In May I will go to a fulling mill with my wool traveling club and full the finished weave, along with some other woven projects. More kemp will fall out in the intense handling, leaving a magical cloth. That is my plan, anyway. I’m truly excited about both the wool journey and the results. I will of course keep you posted.

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. So subscribe!
  • 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

Fjällnäs wool

Fjällnäs sheep is a heritage and conservation breed in Sweden and one of our rarest breeds. This is my twelfth breed study. Previous breed studies have been about Gotland wool, Gute wool, Dalapäls wool, Värmland wool, Jämtland wool, finull wool, rya wool, Klövsjö wool, Åsen wool, Gestrike wool and Åland wool.

Fjällnäs sheep

Fjällnäs sheep is one of the 11 (the eleventh established in the autumn of 2023) conservation and heritage breeds in Sweden. It is the smallest, both in size and in number. According to the statistics of 2022 there were 40 breeding ewes in 8 flocks in Sweden. The rams weigh 30–50 kilos and the ewes 30–40 kilos. For reference a merino ram can weigh up to 100 kilos.

The flock that was the original for the gene bank comes from the northernmost part of Sweden. Traditionally the Fjällnäs sheep have tended themselves on the mountains during spring and summer. In the autumn they were gathered to graze the regrowth of the newly harvested hay.

Just like Dalapäls sheep, the fjällnäs sheep have a strong sense for the flock and are suspicious of strangers. When they graze there are always a couple of individuals that are on the guard, looking out for danger. Tending to themselves during the summer months has made the breed very sturdy.

On the fjällnäs sheep website you can see pictures of the sheep and their lustrous wool.

Wool characteristics

Fjällnäs wool is usually white with a soft yellow tone or with black or grey spots. Some lambs are born fawn but fade to a light copper with age. The wool is quite similar to rya wool – a dual coat with long and very shiny outercoat fibers and plenty of soft and lustrous undercoat.

Two staples of wavy white wool on sunlit moss. The tips of the staples are wound around each other. A piece of melting ice in the upper left corner.
Gentle locks of Fjällnäs wool.

The sturdy wool has been used for mittens, socks, sweaters and warm undergarments that have been needed in the daily lives with forestry, reindeer husbandry and as protection against the cold winter in the northernmost part of Sweden. The wool was also used for fulling, for both the majority population and for the Sami. Research has shown that over 100 year old Sami sewn sheepskins are identical to the modern Fjällnäs skins in texture and colour.

Cixi the 4H bronze medalist

The Fjällnäs fleece I got is a bronze medalist from the 2021 Swedish fleece championships. The ewe, Cixi, comes from a 4H farm (the oldest in Sweden) in the northernmost part of Sweden, where the sheep have lived traditionally. She was their first lamb born in the gene bank. Due to the small amount of Fjällnäs sheep it took the farm a few years to find a ram that was genetically suitable. She was born reddish and now has a light red tint to her fleece.

Cixi’s wool

The first thing I notice as I start picking the fleece of Cixi is its tendency to fall apart. You know that softly woven carpet of staples you get with some fleeces? This is totally the opposite. The staples are very loosely placed next to each other, making picking very easy. The staples are soft, silky and very fine. The rareness of this breed makes me want to make something very special with the fleece and resulting yarn, using it as wisely as I possibly can.

A pile of raw white wool in the sun on a wooden board. The wool is shiny and the staples almost straight.
Raw Fjällnäs Wool.

To guide me in how to make this particular wool shine I like to pick out three main characteristics. I only have this one 200 gram fleece and the characteristics will inevitably be unique to it. The characteristics I choose for Cixi’s Fjällnäs wool are

  • The shine, oh, the shine. This is such a lustrous fleece and I can’t stop looking at it.
  • The strong character. Yes, this wool has a will of its own. Very kind in its appearance, but quite strong minded in the draft.
  • The colour, a warm vanilla with a whiff of red.

Prepare

This is such a small fleece and despite the wide variety of length and character in the staples, I decide to work with the fleece as a whole and not separate it. The combination of long, strong and shiny outercoat fibers and soft and fine undercoat fibers steer me to carding rolags and spinning a woolen 2-ply yarn.

A pile of hand carded white rolags.
White carded rolags arranged in a grid.
Carded rolags of Fjällnäs wool.

After picking I teased the wool with combs. The wool was very open and easy to tease. Carding was a joy, with the openness of the fibers and the delightful blend of outercoat and undercoat fibers. The soft undercoat making up the volume in the rolags and the long, strong and shiny outercoat fibers to armour the rolag and keeping it together is a match made in heaven.

Spin

I love to spin rolags like these with an English longdraw. Gathering twist, making the draft, keeping the twist live in the point of twist engagement, and then add the final twist when I am happy with the thickness and evenness. A rhythm and a dance that makes my heart sing.

Three skeins of handspun yarn in untouched snow.
Three skeins of white handspun yarn in the snow. Some snow is on the skeins.
Three skeins of white handspun yarn are hanging in front of a wooden shed door.
Three skeins of Fjällnäs yarn, woolen spun from carded rolags of both undercoat and outercoat.

The first skein I spun was a bit of a struggle, though. The yarn broke as I spun it and I overspun a lot of it. The plied yarn was wonky with sections of phone cable. For the second skein I listened more to the live fibers in the point of twist engagement and managed to understand how the fibers worked. The skein turned out beautifully, as did the third. And then I was out of fluff.

Use

So, I have my three skeins. It’s not much, but I want to do something special with them. Perhaps a pair of mittens or wrist warmers. A hat or a detail of something larger, or stripes together with another yarn in the same fashion.

Just like most of the Swedish conservation breeds, Fjällnäs wool is very versatile with its dual coat. With more wool than the 200 grams I had I could separate the fiber types and prepare and spin them differently for different projects – strong warp yarns with the outercoat fibers, soft next to skin yarns with the undercoat, and sweaters, mittens, hats, shawls and socks with the fiber types together or semi-separated. The opportunities are endless.

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. So subscribe!
  • 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

A year in wool

The other week when I visited Claudia and her sheep flock, I realized that I have a seasonal cycle when I create yarn and textiles. In a year in wool, autumn is the beginning.

In October, when most of the vegetables in the allotment have been harvested, a majority of Swedish wool is also harvested. For the sake of sheep health, the law says sheep are to be shorn at least once a year. Still, many sheep farmers shear their sheep twice a year: In the autumn, before the ram serves the ewes, and in the spring before the lambs are born. The autumn harvest is when my wool year begins.

Shearing seasons

The autumn wool usually has the highest quality. During the winter the sheep has been pregnant and the lamb hogs a lot of the nutrition. The winter in Sweden is cold and the fleece is extra lanoliny, not much different from our own hair in the winter. Perhaps the sheep have been indoors a lot of the time, leaving time for lots of dirt, straw and bedding to find its way in between the fibers. This leaves a winter fleece that can be dirtier, in poorer condition and with more and heavier lanolin in it.

A woman is shearing a sheep. The sheep is lying on the floor and the shearer is bending over it.
Professional shearer Elin Esperi shears Sylvester the Gestrike lamb in the autumn of 2021.

After that winter coat has been shorn off in the spring shearing, the lambs are born, and soon after the sheep gets access to lots of nutritious grass and fresh air, leaving the fleece in a better state for the autumn shearing.

Fleece hunting

The sound of moving shears sparks my year in wool: I look for fleece to buy, just like on any autumn farmer’s market. Or, rather, fleeces sort of find me and look at me with roe deer eyes and whisper: ”Spin me, spin me!”. And so, in late October I find myself with a compost grid on the floor with drying fleece, another fleece in the wash tub and a third dried and waiting to be picked.

A white fleece is drying in front of a fireplace.
The fleece of Lotta the Svärdsjö ewe is drying in front of the fireplace. Behind the camera are bags with fleeces of the Gestrike sheep Härvor and Doris, waiting to be picked.

This means that I do a lot of wool preparation and spinning during October, November and the first weeks of December. When the pantry is filled to the brim with newly harvested vegetables, I do my best to take care of the oldest fleeces before I dive into the freshly shorn. It is hard, but sometimes I succeed.

A tree

In late december a tree with glittering ornaments moves into the house, right where my spinning wheel usually stands. This is a quite time of year when I like to turn to weaving in the local weaving room. I get to destash and get out of the house during my two weeks or so of holidays.

A green twill weave in a local weaving room, three floor looms in the background.
Towards the end of the year I like to spend some time in the local weaving room.

When the tree is all glistened out and transformed to fire logs I get my spinning wheel back, and return to spinning. The sun is slowly coming back and lights up the living room again. I plan what to sow in the community garden allotment, alongside planning my spinning projects for the spring.

When the sun returns

The returning sun brings sprouts out of the soil and new inspiration into my mind. At this point I want to do everything at once. Weave! Nalbind! Two-end knit! Weave some more! I want to get outside and create textiles, and the spinning wheel gets a little dusty. My life moves outdoors step by step.

Close-up of a braid that is tied in one end around a toe. A person is braiding the braid.
Small projects I can work on outdoors start to poke me in the head in the spring.

At the same time the fleeces in my wool queue start to squeak in the back of my mind and I get a bit concerned about the risk of the oldest fleeces going brittle.

Make room for flax

In the summer when the temperature rises and the crops are more independent than the tiny sprouts just a couple of weeks earlier, I like to take my spinning outdoors in one shape or form. I dust off my flax wheel and spin on the balcony in the afternoon shade.

A woman straddling a red chair outdoors. She is wearing a cowboy hat and brushing a bundle of flax fibers. There is a shadow of a spinning wheel on the floor.
A person is spinning on a cross-armed spindle on a step by a creek.
A person is outside, embroidering the letters J and W on a cloth inside an embroidery hoop. Her bare feet are propped up onto a chair.
In the summer I like to craft outdoors.

I also prepare smaller projects to bring to vacations and excursions – spindle spinning projects, band weaving, two-end knitting and nalbinding. Usually around five parallel projects or more.

Late summer collision

Towards the end of the summer, a lot of the vegetables in the garden need picking, all the while work has started after the summer holidays. I have harvested the flax, started lots of textile projects and need to finish some to ease my mind.

Ten skeins in different sizes of flax yarn hanging from a woven band. They are all labeled with a year between 2014 and 2022.
Small skeins of handspun silk in different shades of blue.
A narrow ribbon weave is placed on a log.
Towards the end of the summer I have lots of projects to finish.

When autumn has settled and the most critical vegetables are taken care of, I have finished some of the parallel projects that sprouted in the spring. The wool queue is shorter and neater and I forget all about it when shearing season is back again.

What is your year in wool like?

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden 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 patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • 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

Flax patch yarn

I have grown an experimental flax patch in my community garden allotment every year since 2014. This year I have spun my flax patch yarn for the first time.

I always felt I needed to deserve to spin my own flax, to be procifient enough to spin it. There was so little of it and I wanted to be sure I could make it justice. The first years I practiced with commercially prepared flax and last year I got to spin the exquisite 80–100 year old flax from the Austrian Berta’s flax project. And this year I allowed myself for the first time to spin my homegrown flax.

My homegrown flax 2014–2022 is finally spun!

Post prep prep

I always rehackle my stricks right before I spin them. I work every strick through rough hackle, fine hackle and flax brush for a fresh preparation. This gives me the best odds for a smooth yarn. And old preparation can be dense and tangled.

I rehackle and brush my flax right before I dress my distaff.

After I have rehackled and brushed I make a fan of the golden fibers and dress my distaff. My distaff holder is a bit on the short side, so I hold it in my hand when I spin and draft with the other hand.

2014–2017

The harvests from the first years were so small and I decided to spin the flax from these years together. 2014 and 2015 in one joined preparation, 2016 and 2017 in separate preparations but in the same stretch of yarn. 2016 was the year the neighbour’s cat decided my flax patch was the perfect napping spot. The harvest that year was minimal and very bent. 2017 cat free, but quite underretted.

The stricks were quite different. All quite short, probably due to the seed variety I had at the time. Retting and processing was of questionable quality in some of them, but all the flax was definitely spinnable.

2018 and 2019

2018 was a very dry and hot summer. Still, the flax that year was long (due to a new seed variety) and plentiful. I had extended my experiment with a second patch. A bit coarse, perhaps. The flax also had a yellowish tone. 35 grams of processed fiber in total.

I was really into flax that summer, and shot a video that for some reason got quite popular. In the video I dress my distaff with commercial flax and spin it on an in-hand spindle. In the background the lawn is visible, yellow from the drought. A month or so later I shot another video where I prepared my 2017 flax harvest at the Skansen open air museum. The 2018 flax was also prepared at Skansen, one year later.

I’m fanning my flax out in thin layers to prepare for dressing my distaff. The blue distaff band (right) is my spindle spun nettle yarn woven on a backstrap loom and dyed with my homegrown woad. The distaff pin was a gift from my grandfather to my great-grandmother Berta.

The following year was quite modest and underretted. I have no record of how the processing went, I only see a sad little strick of 11 grams.

2020

In 2020 the plants were quite uneven in both maturity and length – some were still green and a lot were totally wiltered when it was time to harvest. This was the last year with the spot I had used from the very start. The plants just didn’t thrive there any longer. Still, spinning the 14 grams from the 2020 yield was quite enjoyable and I managed to spin a fairly fine and even yarn.

2021

I had such high hopes for the 2021 flax. I had two patches in the allotment and the flax was tall. Unfortunately I managed to underret it. As I processes it I cried for all the waste, in both length and amount. I got 58 grams out of it. As I spun it, it was indeed uneven in length. The fattest of the three stricks was rehackled waste and second hand quality.

2022

The 2022 flax is my largest fiber yield yet – 123 grams. When I harvested this flax I did so in sections, beginning with the coarse edge plants, then moving on to the rest in order of length. This technique resulted in four different qualities.

I’m spinning my homegrown flax on my Kromski pre-prroduction Mazurka Henrietta, named after my great-grandmother and my aunt.

It was a pleasure to spin these and experience the difference. The two medium coarse stricks were a joy to spin as they were both long and thick. I could create very well organized fans and lovely distaff dressings.

The rehackled waste

I always rehackle my flax before I spin it, unless it has been newly hackled. A lot of fiber ends up in the hackles as waste. I do rehackle the hackle waste, though, and spin a second quality flax from it. This resulted in 62 grams from the hackling and rehackling of the 2014–2022 flax harvests. To my surprise it was a lovely spin. I thought it would be rough and tangled, but it worked quite smoothly. I did spin it indoors, though, since our neighbours had decided to eat fermented herring on their balcony. It did not smell like raspberry pie. At all.

Experiencing the experiments

As I have been spinning nine years of flax harvests during the past couple of weeks I have gone through all my flax husbandry successes and challenges. I have seen and experienced what soil, rain, sun, cats, retting and preparation does in the spinning and in the resulting yarn.

My flax patch yarn before and after scouring.

Through this I have learned that

  • different fiber lengths in one distaff dressing can result in an uneven yarn. It is worth the time and effort to harvest the flax in bundles of different lengths. A taller plant is also usually a coarser plant, so this separation also results in different coarseness in the bundles.
  • underretting influences all the upcoming steps. From more work needed for hackling and more waste in both hackling and spinning to more tangles in the fan, less spinning flow and a lower quality yarn.
  • rehackling with both rough and fine hackles and brushing does wonders for making the fan. The fibers are well separated and fan out smoothly and untangled.
  • creating the fan in thin layers will result in smoother spinning and higher quality yarn. Think one fiber thin layers.
  • cats need to be kept off the flax patch
  • Switching the patch from one year to the next is important.
  • retting is still a mystery.

I knew all this in theory. But experiencing it – literally – first hand is something completely different. My hands now know things they can’t unknow and I am richer for it. I can look at my 1136 meters and 223 grams of handspun and homegrown yarn and remember all I have learned. I may weave a towel or three with it.

And oh, I ended the week in the most perfect way by spending a whole day with my Austrian friend and flax princess Christiane Seufferlein of the Berta’s flax project. We had the best of times.

I met with the Austrian flax princess Christiane Seufferlein at the world heritage of Birka outside Stockholm.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Tog and þel

In October I bought an Icelandic fleece from Hulda at Uppspuni mini mill in Iceland. I decided to separate the coats – tog and þel – by hand, just to see what I could learn. And I did indeed learn.

If you are a patron (or want to become one) you can see how I separate tog and þel by hand on the darker fleece in my December 2022 video postcard.

Two fleeces of Icelandic wool – one whole fleece in a lighter shade of grey and part of a darker one.

I asked Hulda to pick out a couple of ewe fleeces for me, with an interesting colour range somewhere along the grey scale. She found two beautiful fleeces, one lighter and one darker grey. I chose the lighter one and as much of the darker one that would work in a 2 kilo package. A few weeks later it landed at my doorstep – 1500 grams of the lighter grey and 500 grams of the darker.

Tog and þel

Icelandic wool has a dual coat with long and strong outercoat fibers and shorter, finer and softer undercoat fibers. Tog is Icelandic for the outercoat of Icelandic fleeces. I believe the word has the same origin as the Swedish word tagel (horse hair). The Icelandic undercoat is called þel [thel].

Separating

Usually when I want to separate undercoat and outercoat to spin separately I use a pair of combs. But I like to work close to the wool and I thought I’d try separating the two fiber types by hand on these beautiful Icelandic fleeces. An Icelandic spinner told me that her way of separating the fiber types was by hand.

So, this is how I separate the coats by hand:

  • The first step is easy – I pick a few locks by the tip ends. I bundle them up with the tip ends in one direction and the cut ends in the other.
  • On some parts of the darker fleece the cut ends are a little bundled up, so I lightly open up the cut ends to make the separation smoother.
  • I keep a firm grip in the tip ends and by lightly pulling and wiggling the cut ends, separate the two fiber types. I place the tog carefully in a paper bag with the tip end facing one direction and the cut ends another. I place the þel in another bag.
Lovely and freshly picked staples of Icelandic wool.

The fleeces Hulda has sent to me are of excellent quality. For that reason I knew that these were perfect candidates for separating by hand. In the beginning I had no particular reason for doing it this way, other than to explore and learn. But after having separated the whole 2 kilos of fleece by hand I now know the benefits of it and I will walk you through what I have learned.

Hello Wool

Usually I start a fleece exploration of a fleece by picking it, the whole fleece before I do anything else with it. With this Icelandic fleece I pick a few staples and separate them before I pick another few staples. Same steps but in a little different order. Regardless of the order of the steps. this is my first opportunity to get to know the fleece, and in its most natural form: From the washed fleece I pick out staple by staple and continue from there.

As I work with my hands through the wool I get to know it, I get to say hello to the wool and see what it has to teach me. As I separate tog and the I find two different colours.

Let’s stop right there for a minute. As I pick the tip end of a staple and gently pull it out of the mass of staples, free at the tip ends and holding on at the cut ends, I get the opportunity to get to know the wool from the very start. I get to see how long the fibers are, both outercoat and undercoat. I see crimp, colour and staple type. When I dig my hands into the fleece I feel the bounce and when I draft some fibers out of the cut end of a staple I get a feeling of how it will spin.

Picking and separating the locks by hand gives me a unique opportunity to make an inventory of the entire fleece and sort according to any parameter I fancy.

Colours

I knew there were different colours in the fleeces, but it wasn’t until I picked and separated the staples I saw where the colours really were. The lighter fleece was quite homogenous – light grey þel and about the same colour in the tog.

Soft þel from the darker fleece. The basket is a Ullkränku, a Gotland wool basket.

The darker fleece, however hid a whole range of grey from very light to pitch black that was revealed when I separated the coats. All the þel was silvery grey while the colour range was in the tog. So, my original plan to separate the tog and the þel had to be revised – I added a second dimension – colour – to my separation and sorted my bundles of tog into a range from light to dark.

The range of colours in the outercoat/tog fibers, with the largest quantity in the medium to dark grey range.

Had I separated the coats with combs from the start I may have ended up with a variegated top of outercoat fibers, but I wouldn’t have discovered the treasure of the actual colour range and the opportunity I would have had in sorting according to colour.

Response

As I pull the individual staple out of the carpet of staples I feel, right there between my hands, how the fibers relate to each other. But what does that mean, how the fibers relate to each other? Well, I’m talking about how the fibers separate from each other – do they let go of the grip easily and smoothly or do I have to struggle? Do the fibers agree with me or do they fight me? The way the fibers separate from each other is an indication of how they will behave later when I spin them.

As I hold one end of the staple in one hand and the other end in the other hand and gently pull I feel the response from the fiber types between my hands. Even if I might not always have words to describe what it is I feel in the response, it is definitely information that my muscles remember and bring back to me as I prepare and spin the wool later on. So, to summarize:

  • As I separate the coats my hands get a feeling of how easily the fibers separate from each other. Is it smooth or do I need to struggle? After ten, fifteen, umpteen coat separations my hands know what to expect and how to behave to respond to the information from the wool
  • My hands also get to know the length of the fibers and the coats. After a number of separations they know how long the fibers are. As I later comb or card and then spin my hands already know by feel how long the fibers are and how to work with the wool. My hands also know what distance to keep from each other for a smooth spin.

Every time the fibers go through my hands I get the chance to learn from them, to allow my hands to navigate in the responses I get from the wool. My hands store the information and get a better understanding of how to work with the wool in the upcoming steps o the process.

Þel weft

I have separated both of the fleeces into tog, þel and colour and stored them in my wool storage. They will now have to wait their turn in the fleece queue. When that day comes I will card the þel and spin woolen. This way I will get a light, soft and warm yarn that I will use as weft yarn. If the almost white and the light grey have enough contrast I may play with the colours.

The þel fibers are longer than I expected, but still work beautifully in a rolag.

As I test card the þel I feel how long the fibers are, I’m not used to undercoat fibers of that length. But it cards sweetly and smoothly into a lovely rolag that is a joy to spin. The fibers aren’t as well separated as if I would have teased them, so I’ll have to figure something out when I get to that stage. Perhaps just willowing them is enough. And fun too!

Tog warp

I will comb the tog and spin worsted into a strong warp yarn. This yarn will be strong and shiny and I will use it as a warp yarn. With the tog I have an opportunity to use the colour range to make stripes.

Long tog fibers require dramatic combing choreography.

The tog fibers are very long! This means that I need to be very dramatic as I comb, making the movements large and bold to prevent the combed fibers to loop back on themselves and create tangles. I believe this warp will be a strong one.

The making of a sweet tog bird’s nest.

Test spin

Of course I test spun the preparations too. Nothing fancy, just a quick go with suspended spindles. I spun them in different directions – the tog clockwise and the þel counter-clockwise. I have learned that the threads marry each other in a weave this way. And I get to practice spinning in both directions.

Combed tog spun worsted and clockwise. Carded þel spun woolen and counter-clockwise.

The tog and the þel with their unique characteristics that were so closely intertwined on the hoof have been torn apart and put together in a new fashion to be useful for a new wearer. I hope I can create a textile that makes the fleece justice.

Sometimes I get all giddy thinking about all the treasures I have in my wool storage, all picked and ready to be recreated into something completely new. A treasure chest in my sofa bed. Who knew!

If you are a patron (or want to become one) you can see how I separate tog and þel by hand on the darker fleece in my December 2022 video postcard.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to missanything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.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

Old blog post: Fleece happens

Last week I indicated that I might not be able to write a blog post this week. I have been a good girl and not bent over backwards to squeeze a blog post in. But I did pick out an old blog post to give you something to read if you want to.

On November 20th 2021, one year ago, I wrote about what I do when fleece happens. You know, when a fleece just comes to you, without you knowing what really happened. The fall shearing is usually the highlight of the year for many spinners in Sweden, fleece happens a lot this time of year. This autumn, for example, fleece has happened thrice for me.

In the post I write about what I do with a fleece when it comes to me, in terms of washing, how I prepare it for storing and what documentation I do, how and where.

I will spend the weekend on a gym instructor course for the gym chain where I am an instructor. It will be tough, and I’m really excited about it.

P.S. A week ago I was interviewed by Daniel Howell of Folk Craft revival about spinning. Listen to the podcast episode here!

Happy reading!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to missanything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.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.