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Wool Journey 2023

in 2014 I started a wool traveling club with four friends. Since then we have gone on an annual wool journey together. This year we went to one of the members’ house to weave.

Today I launch a new short online lecture about picking fleece! Welcome to my online school!

To be able to tell you about the 2023 wool journey I need to go back first. The 2022 wool journey went to Dala-Floda where we learned a local embroidery technique called påsöm. The teacher we hired for the course, Anna-Karin Jobs Arnberg, also arranges fulling workshops in the local 17th century fulling mill.

Weaving for fulling

A fulling mill is a mill that uses water to operate giant beams that stomp into larger troughs. Loosely woven wool cloth is placed in the troughs – 20 meters in each trough, and is fulled by the beams. You can read more about the fulling mill here and watch a video I recorded around the fulling mill back in 2018.

The 17th centrum fulling mill where we will be going in 2024. Pictures from 2018. Rightmost picture of the beams and the troughs by Dan Waltin.

At the 2022 course we decided to weave together on the 2023 wool journey with the aim of fulling our woven cloths on the 2024 wool journey at the fulling mill. Boel invited us all to her house to weave.

Boel’s house

Boel’s house is to die for. Smack in the middle of nowhere, still cozily tucked between green hills, forests and pastures. A flock of her parents’ Gotland sheep graze right around the yard and bind the perfect picture together with their quiet munching and sweet bleating.

Photo by Kristin Jelsa
Where there are sheep there may be cuddling. Anna to the left, Kristin in the center. Boel is in the background to the right.

It’s been a while since I met sheep and I was overjoyed at the opportunity to cuddle Boel’s sweet ladies. Being with sheep is such a serene place to be. Their warmth, their wool, the smell of lanolin, grass and sheep poo calmes me and makes my heart sing. Or bleat.

Gotland sheep

If you are outside of Sweden and have come in contact with Gotland sheep in your country, chances are their wool is softer than the wool of Swedish Gotland sheep. The Swedish breed standards encourage breeding for strong and lustrous Gotland wool to provide for beautiful skins. The Swedish Gotland wool is truly beautiful, but I rarely spin it since it is quite rough and at the same time very slippery.

A sweet moment with Gotland sheep.

Since I had the perfect opportunity, I bought a skin from Elton, the allegedly mean ram. He had done his job and fathered three seasons’ lambs. Rumour has it that he tasted good. And his skin is magnificent – large, silvery with a blueish tint and with a darker stripe down the mid back, an eel in the language of Gotland fleece.

A Gotland sheep skin is a true beauty. Here is Elton the mean ram with a killer eel down the back.

Looms and projects

For this year’s wool journey in preparation for next year’s we didn’t hire a teacher or attend a course. We just got together at Boel’s house to weave. Anna and I came with our rigid heddle looms on the train, Kristin brought her rigid heddle loom in her car and Boel had her floor loom in her house. Ellinor couldn’t make it this year.

Weaving in Boel’s conservatory overlooking the sheep pastures. The bosom friend I’m wearing is my handspun. It is available as a pattern in the spring 2022 issue of Spin-Off magazine. Screenshot from video by Kristin Jelsa.

I didn’t use a handspun yarn for this weave, I didn’t have one ready. I did however have lots of Shetland yarn I bought at a clearance after a lady who was the first in Sweden to import Shetland yarns. My plan is to turn the fulled cloth into a pillowcase. I have lots of yarn left and my idea is to use the three colours but in a different order and in different patterns for a collection of pillowcases.

Together in our hands

The members of the wool traveling club usually don’t meet between the wool journeys, so we have a lot to talk about when we do meet. About wool and crafting of course, but also about families, relationships and the ways of the world. Children growing up – there are eleven children between us, from 2 to 22 years old. Joys, frustrations, we talk about everything and anything.

Cats happen at Boel’s house. This one found a tolerable napping space. Photo by Boel Dittmer.

Crafting and talking is such a sweet space to be a part of. Being in our hands together gives an extra dimension to the room, something more, deeper, more sincere. I cherish these moments and am very grateful for them and for my sisters in craft.

We have different lives and live in different parts of the country, yet when we come together we take part of each other’s realities with warmth. When the journey is over we go back to our regular lives, and the following year we pick up where we left off.

Breathing

It was so quiet. Not a human-made sound, just the buzzing of bees, bleating of sheep, fluttering of leaves and bare feet in the grass. Breathing in the air in a place like that must be extra nourishing. I like to think that the air I breathe when I get up at five a.m. is unused, crisp like a new sprout. But this, here, is something extra.

Breathing in the countryside and the early morning skinny dip.

Knitting outdoors in the September sun, listening to the silence and resting my eyes on trees and pastures with the needles dancing in my hands was such a bliss. Kristin and I sneaked out both mornings for a lovely dip in a nearby lake. That too a lovely space to be, in the water with a friend in the early hours.

Ready to full

As I got back home to Stockholm I finished the last stripes of my weave. The next weave to full will hopefully be a handspun one.

A few days after I got home I finished the last of my weave.

I have actually already finished one that has been waiting for a couple of years by now to be fulled. I can’t wait to get to the fulling mill!

Now go and enroll in that online lecture about picking fleece!

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.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.
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Knit, rip, reknit

Have you ever knit a garment, not really used it, ripped it and reknit it into something else? I hadn’t until just recently. Today I knit, rip, reknit and rejoice. Spoiler alert: There is no spinning in this post.

A while ago, when I was looking for inspiration for linen knits, I stumbled upon a top that I really wanted to knit. My plan was to knit it with my handspun linen yarn.

Knit, 2014

However, I did have a top that I had knit back in 2014 in a commercial yarn that was the same as the yarn required in the pattern for this new top. The commercial yarn was a beautiful linen yarn by Quince & co. that I had ordered from the U.S. for the 2014 sweater.

Back in 2014 I knit the East end top by Alicia Plummer. It’s a lovely top, but I didn’t wear it very much. Photo by Dan Waltin.

I did love the top back when I knit it, but when I wore it, it was quite fiddly. The neck was a bit on the wide side and there was always a risk of body parts or bra straps showing. It never occurred to me back then to alter the fit. Therefore I didn’t use it very much.

Rip, 2023

When I found the new pattern requiring the same yarn, I decided it was time to rip the old top. Ripping linen yarn was a bit of a detangling challenge, but after some fiddling and occasional secret cutting, I managed to undo the whole top. To even out the phone cord curls I soaked the squiggly yarn overnight and hung it to dry, lightly weighted. It worked very well, reknitting with it felt no different than when I knit with it the first time.

Reknit, 2023

The new pattern is the Seguin top, by Quince. & co. It is a simple bottom-up knit in the round stockinette raglan sweater with rolled up cuffs and hem and a simple 1×1 ribbed neck band. The detail that makes the whole sweater interesting is a rectangular chest panel in sort of a tight oats pattern. The one over two cable repeat pulls the fabric together, making it look like decreased stitches underneath the panel, but it’s exactly the same amount of stitches.

The Seguin top is the loveliest everyday top.

I really like this detail, that shapes the whole yoke and gives some flare from the bust down. In combination with the simple stockinette and rolled hems it is the perfect everyday want-to-live-in kind of a top.

Shortage and abundance

The further I knit on the Seguin top, the more I realized that I might need to buy a couple of extra skeins. I found an online shop in France that carried the yarn in the same colour. I bought two to be safe, but I ended up using only a quarter of a skein to finish the sweater.

A colour shirt where I needed to join a quarter of a skein of new yarn is a sweet reminder of the thriftiness that is the core of this top.

I knew there was a risk that the colours of the used, ripped and washed 2014 yarn and the new 2023 yarn wouldn’t exactly match, but it didn’t bother me. It would just be a quirky conversation starter in the name of sustainability and making do and mend.

I was right, there is a colour shift from the old to the new yarn, and I quite like it. Ripping and reknitting has been a way of taking care of precious yarn and clothe your family through rough times. Knitting in the round works very well for this purpose – once a garment has been mended and patched until it can’t be mended anymore, it has been frogged and reknit into something else.

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.
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Linen shawl

Another long-time project is finished, a linen shawl in yarn I spun last summer and have been knitting off and on since then. The flax is between 80 and 120 years old and comes from the Austrian Berta’s flax project.

Many of you may have heard of the Berta’s flax project, started by Austrian Christiane Seufferlein who got a dowry chest filled with flax grown and prepared in the 1940’s. This was the first of many such chests, and now Christiane ships stricks of flax all over the world to enthusiastic spinners who want to honour the memory of Berta and all the other women whose chests have been donated. You can read more about Berta’s flax and become a member of the Berta’s flax Guild here.

My handspun linen shawl is finished! Photos by Dan Waltin.

Spinning on the balcony

I got a few stricks of flax from the Berta’s flax project, between 80 and 120 years old. I spun it in the afternoon shade on my balcony last summer on my sweet flax wheel Henrietta. Since I had learned that flax grows counter-clockwise I spun it counter-clockwise.

80–120 year old stricks of Austrian flax from the Berta’s flax project (left). Spinning on my flax wheel Henrietta, while wearing a blouse that once belonged to my Austrian great-grandmother Henrietta (center). To the right a finished skein of my handspun flax yarn.

The Austrian flax has an overwhelming quality. All the steps from sewing and growing to retting and processing has been performed with such skill and dedication. And why shouldn’t it have been – this was a vital life insurance for the women of the time. And I got to spin it, which I did with love and reference to their work.

I had no specific plans with the yarn, but having seen Christiane in a beautiful hand-knit shawl I decided I would knit something similar, so I plied the yarn into a Z-plied yarn.

Knitting

As I started knitting my linen shawl I realized that I unplied the Z-plied yarn as I knit – the yarn ended up in two strands held together in the fabric. I put some extra plying twist in the following skeins, which made it a little better. The lace fringe at the ends turned out biased, but after blocking it doesn’t really show. But I did learn something! As I keep telling my students: My mistakes are a map of what I have learned.

Knitting in Austria, on the train back home and at home on the balcony.

I brought the knitting project on the train to Austria that summer, the same route my parents had taken in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s to be able to be together. I really wanted to bring the knitting project back to where it had been grown and processed so many decades ago, to the land where my father and my grandmothers were born and where I have three of my four roots. When I met Christiane I could also show her what was becoming of the flax she had so generously sent me.

I could live in this shawl. It is cool, soft and has the sweetest drape. Photo by Dan Waltin.

Flax isn’t very flexible in knitting, so my hands hurt after a while. Other projects have cut in line, but the shawl has always been patiently waiting, cool and sweet.

Harvest shades

In one end of the linen shawl the colour of the flax is slightly darker than the in the rest of the shawl. And that is how flax works – depending on weather, location, retting and climate, the flax can differ in colour. It is a sweet reminder of the natural material and that nature is perfect in its imperfection.

Finishing

I finished the shawl this week. At the same time, we were packing for a vacation in a rented log cabin and things were scattered around the house in preparation for the journey. I wanted to block the shawl, but I realized that it would take up too much floor space. Then I realized I could just bring the shawl and my blocking wires to the log cabin and block the shawl on one of the spare beds. And so I did.

I blocked the shawl on one of the spare beds in the log cabin and wove in the ends down by the creek (photo right: Dan Waltin)

After having woven in the ends I had a finished linen shawl and the perfect location for a photo shoot.

Some numbers

Some questions always arise regarding measurements and weights, so here you go:

  • Shawl weight: 275 grams
  • Shawl measurements: 56 x 200 centimeters
  • Yarn grist: 3200 m/kg
  • Yarn meterage for the shawl: 880 meters.
A finished linen shawl. On the left fringe you can see a slight colour shift. Photo by Dan Waltin

The pattern is Veela, by Libby Jonson.

I am using the leftover 100 meters or so of yarn for a small traveling project which I will show you another time.

References

Here are some earlier blog posts about the Berta’s flax project and how I have rehackled and spun the yarn for this shawl:

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.
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Knit sleeve jacket

It’s done. The knit sleeve jacket I have been working on since I started spinning the sleeve yarn four years ago. This is one of my biggest projects. It includes five different textile techniques, and I am glad to share it with you today. It’s really done.

It started with sweet locks of dalapäls wool and a dream of a knit sleeve jacket. This project has been with me for such a long time and I can’t believe it’s finished.

The making

Creating this knit sleeve jacket has been such a joy. I have had this project in my hands in one way or another on and off since 2019. The sleeves have been with me on many train rides and vacations. Lately also on coffe breaks and meetings at work.

In 2023 I have worked on the sleeves more focused and finished them, and since mid-April I have sewn and embroidered almost every evening. I have felt the soft and safe wool in my hands over and over again.

A five-technique project is finished and I am very proud of it.

Sometimes when I craft I watch a series or listen to an audiobook. But for this project, I have mostly just enjoyed being in the materials and in my hands, letting my thoughts come and go like the wool between my hands, the stitches from needle to needle, the thread up and down the cloth and my breath in and out.

The model

This jacket has elements that are traditional in the County of Dalarna. I am not from Dalarna, but I am intrigued by the techniques and the rich textile heritage of the area. The techniques are sometimes used together, but probably not the way I have put them together. So, while to an untrained eye (like mine) the jacket may look like something of a folk costume jacket, it is not. It is just the result of my exploration and celebration of various techniques and designs.

The lining is almost in place, just the front opening left to stitch.

Five textile techniques

So, in this project I have used five textile techniques:

  • I spun the yarn on a supported spindle. The wool comes from the longest locks of several dalapäls sheep.
  • I two-end knitted the sleeves with my spindle spun yarn
  • I bought the broadcloth and hand sewed the bodice with waxed linen thread (commercial). I ebayed the lining and machine sewed it together and hand stitched it onto the broadcloth
  • I wove the band with a commercial linen yarn
  • I embroidered the greenery with påsöm technique and commercial yarn.

I will walk you through the techniques and my journey with them.

Supported spindle spinning the yarn

I started this project in 2019, spinning the yarn from locks of dalapäls wool on a supported spindle. This has of course taken a lot of time, but I have loved every spinning second. Dalapäls wool is very shiny and has strong outercoat fibers and fine undercoat fibers.

I have spun the sleeve yarn on supported Björn Peck spindles from teased locks of dalapäls wool.

I opened up and lightly teased each staple and spun from the cut ends. This was to make sure I got both undercoat and outercoat fibers evenly in the yarn.

Since I wanted to two-end knit the sleeves I spun the yarn counter-clockwise and plied clockwise. This way the yarn looks its very best for this particular technique.

Two-end knitting the yarn

Tvåändsstickning, or two-end knitting is a technique that has an old history in Sweden, and particularly in Dalarna. The knitter alternates two yarn ends, usually the inner and outer ends from the same ball, and wrap them around each other at the back between the stitches. Tvåändsstickning means two-end knitting. A common translation is twined knitting. This translation came about since someone decided it was more commercially pleasing than two-end knitting. I prefer the latter.

From lock to sleeve through teasing, spinning, plying, skeining and hand winding a centerpull ball.

After some adventures with running out of yarn, finding a suitable substitute sheep, frogging and reknitting I finally knit up to the armholes this spring. In April this year Karin Kahnlund, master knitter with two-end knitting as her specialty, helped me calculate how to decrease for the sleeve caps. I knit the caps in the round and cut the steeks when I was happy. All of a sudden I was done! And very happy.

The finished sleeves. Right side out (top) and wrong side out (bottom). The twisted stitches create horizontal ridges on the wrong side, making the fabric very sturdy and wind proof.

The sleeves weigh approximately 250 grams each, without the embroideries. Here are some resources about spinning and knitting the sleeves:

Hand sewing the bodice

Karin Kahnlund also helped me find a pattern for the bodice, a model called Gertrud. This also happened to be from the County of Dalarna. I had been thinking about having a professional seamstress sew the bodice for me, but Karin cheered me on to do it myself. And I am glad I did, I got to spend some lovely time with high quality broadcloth and waxed linen thread in hand.

I made a tuile out of an old sheet and felt very grown up.

The bodice pattern is quite simple. Two back panels and one front panel with two vertical darts on each panel. The front opening is also shaping the garment. I made a tuile out of a sheet first to make sure the fit was right. The bottom hem was originally straight, but I added some shape to it.

Gertrud the bodice, in fine broadcloth.

Years ago I had an itch for ebayed textiles. In one Ebay raid I found a piece of printed cotton cloth that I immediately knew would serve as the lining for the bodice. However, the piece was too small, so I paired it up with a similar fabric from the same raid. I did machine sew it, but stitched it to the bodice by hand.

A woven band

You know when you get an itch to weave a linen band in candy store colours? Well, I did, and I happened to find colours that would perfectly match the jacket lining, in Kerstin Neumüller’s web shop. Initially I had planned to do something with the band on the lining, but as I saw one version of the bodice pattern with woven bands along the front openings, I knew that was where they should be.

A woven linen band in candystore colours, perfectly matching the ebayed cotton lining. Clasps from DiviniCouture. Right photo by Nora Waltin.

I wove the band on a backstrap loom, using just a bundle of hand carved sticks. Here is a blog post poem I wrote while weaving the band on a train ride back in February.

Påsöm embroidery

Påsöm is also a technique that is traditional in Dalarna. Bulky, almost paw print like flowers stitched with 4-ply, airy yarn in scrumptious colours. Who wouldn’t want that on their two-end knitted sleeves? As it turns out, the dense quality of two-end knitted fabric works perfectly for påsöm embroidery. A tradition in Dala-Floda, where the påsöm technique has been mostly used, is to stitch påsöm patterns on two-end knitted mittens. I decided to fill parts of my sleeves with the bombastic flower arrangements, with commercial yarn from Flodaros. I wouldn’t dream of spinning this yarn myself, let alone dye it.

The finished sleeves, Left underarm and right upper arm. To the right are some traditional two-end knitted sleeves. On some of them the pattern is larger the closer to the shoulder they get.

In some older knit sleeve jackets with knit patterns, the shapes are larger the higher up on the sleeves they are placed. I wanted to do something similar with my embroidery. On the right upper arm the top flower is larger than the middle and the bottom one and the arrangement also narrowes downward. On the left underarm the pansies are the same size, but the greenery gets larger towards the elbow.

You can read more about påsöm embroidery here. And here are some of my other påsöm projects: A hat, a pocket and a spindle case.

If you are a patron (or want to become one) you can see some of the påsöm embroidery on the sleeves in the May 2023 video postcard.

Embroidering on two-end knitting

Påsöm embroidery has been traditional on two-end knitted textiles. Because of the technique with the tight knitting, the twisting on the wrong side and the fine needles, the fabric is quite dense and inelastic. In this sense, it behaves more like woven fabric than knitted. I can stitch my embroidery without using an embroidery hoop and without running the risk of the sleeve getting bubbly or the embroidery pulled together.

Two-end knitting is a lovely textile to embroider on.

Still, it’s different than embroidering on broadcloth and it was a delight to get to know the cooperation between the påsöm embroidery and the two-end knitted material.

Wearing the knit sleeve jacket

As I put the jacket on I suddenly wear all those hours of making – spinning, knitting, sewing, weaving and embroidering. I know every nook and cranny of this jacket and I am proud of every corner of it, including the wonky stitches. Perhaps especially the wonky stitches. This jacket has been made with such love, dedication and curiosity.

The sweetest linen shift, from the Berta’s flax project (video screen shots).

The other day I picked up a parcel from my friend Christiane of the Berta’s flax project. She had sent me the most beautiful handspun, handwoven 120-ish year old shift that was just perfect to wear underneath the knit sleeve jacket. It was likely worn by an Austrian woman named Josefine.

Wearing this jacket is such a joy!

I had no idea of the finished result when I started spinning the yarn. All I knew was that I wanted to make a knit sleeve jacket. It’s here now and I love it.

The early summer light

There is a spot near our house that turns magic for around fifteen minutes every evening during just a couple of weeks in June. The evening sun shines through the trees onto the light green and fresh grass. The light is truly magic. It’s there for such a short time (provided the sky is clear), yet I giggle at the thought of the limits. I can’t get everything the way I want it. Nature decides, just as it should.

Greenery in the early summer light. Photo by Nora Waltin.

Yesterday I went to the spot for a photo shoot. I was back at the time and the spot where I, three years ago, shot a video of me spinning the yarn for the sleeves, catch the light. I brought my tripod and my daughter to the spot and shot a series of photos and a video with the finished jacket A special feeling indeed. Pop over to my Instagram account to see a reel from the photo session.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • 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

Sleeves

In 2019 I started spinning yarn for a pair of two-end knitted sleeves. I have worked on and off on them since then, but now they are finally finished!

You can see videos where I spin the yarn here and where I knit the sleeves here. You can read more about two-end (twined) knitting here and about the project here.

It started with some sweet locks of dalapäls wool I got from a shepherdess, Carina. She had collected the longest locks from several of her sheep and I got to buy them. I had been keen to knit a pair of two-end knitted sleeves and when I saw the locks I knew they would be the perfect candiates for the yarn.

Two-end knitting

Two-end knitting is a very old Scandinavian knitting technique where you use two strands of yarn and twist them around each other on the wrong side. This creates horisontal twisted ridges on the wrong side and makes the fabric very sturdy and wind-proof. You knit quite tightly with small circumference needles.

The right side to the left and and the wrong side to the right.

I choose to have the right side facing, which is traditional in Sweden. In Norway it seems to be more common with the wrong side facing, often for workwear garments and accessories.

It takes time

I have worked on these sleeves for a very long time. With long pauses obviously, but spinning the 430 grams of yarn that the sleeves required on a spindle does take time. I spun the yarn on a supported spindle from the tip end of lightly teased locks. Mainly in bed in the evenings before I went to sleep. It was the loveliest way to end the day.

Here is the whole process – lock, teased lock, singles, plied yarn, skein, ball and the two-end knitted sleeve.

The knitting technique in itself is slow too, and add to that 2 millimeter needles and a tight gauge. As always, I have knitted the sleeves parallel. I do not want to risk either a second sleeve syndrome or different sized sleeves due to different tensions.

Many a journey

The sleeves have accompanied me on many train journeys, to the farthest north in Sweden and down south to Austria. The journeys and my experiences are now forever knitted into the sleeves.

The sleeves have accompanied me to many places.

I cast on for the sleeves just before I went to a teaching gig at Sätergläntan back in 2019. Two-end knitting is the perfect train craft – it usually dosen’t take up very much space and the knitting is slow and mindful. As the yarn gets too twisten I hold it up and let the ball untwist the yarn. I remember a lady watching me on the train, smiling. When I readied myself to get off she approached me and asked if I was going to Sätergläntan and if I was two-end knitting. She said she was nearly blind, but she had recognized the motion I had made to untwist the yarn. She was of course a knitter too and had taken many courses at Sätergläntan herself.

Frogging and finding sheep

I had calculated the increasing of stitches, but as I approached the upper arms I realized the sleeves were a bit on the slim side. On the 2020 wool journey I asked the teacher Karin Kahnlund for advice and she said I should frog a large part of the sleeves and make more increases. For a long while I didn’t knit at all, the project didn’t sing to me at the time.

Spinning away.

Eventually I did pick up the project and started the long journey to the upper arms, now with frogged yarn. It went quite well, until I realized I didn’t have enough yarn. I needed to find another sheep with the same staple length. I put the project aside again. Six months ago I did find my fleece – a lovely one from my dalapäls shepherd friend Lena’s ewe Nehne. I started spinning again. This time my heart sang. I had found a sweet spinning rhythm that moved me from winter to spring in a mindful flow.

Sleeve caps

I have been knitting on most of the coffee breaks at work since January, spinning at home on the couch. And suddenly, a couple of weeks ago I had reached the armholes. I wasn’t comfortable calculating the decreases for the sleeve caps on my own, so I looked for help. Luckily, Karin Kahnlund, one of the most skilled two-end knitters and knitting teachers in Sweden has her studio just a couple of kilometers from my house and she offers tuition twice a month.

I went to Karin’s place and found myself in the midst of five ladies and their two-end knitting projects and Karin walking between all of us and guiding us. She helped me calculate the decreases and gave me lots of feedback on my plans for the sleeves (which will be another post).

Cut the steeks

Two-end knitting is almost always done in the round. It is a lot easier than working back and forth. The back and forth method also results in stitches tilting in different directions. So her advice for me was to knit the sleeve cap decreases in the round and then cut the steeks.

Cutting the steeks is always scary, but it turned out lovely!

I know cutting steeks works perfectly fine, but still, it’s totally nerve wrecking! I did finish the decreases and I did manage to cut the steeks without either fainting or ruining the sleeves. The shape of the sleeve caps looks really nice. All is as it should be.

Fulling and fluffing

To make the steeks a little more reliable I decided to full them slightly. I also wanted to make the wrong sides a little fluffier against my skin. So I dusted off my sweet waulking board, turned the sleeves inside out and worked them against the board. As a bonus the soap and the hot water helped clean the sleeves too. They were a bit dirty from all their adventures through the last four years.

I fulled the wrong sides of the sleeves slightly to make them softer and fluffier.

I do have plans for a bodice to attach the sleeves to. I’m just not ready to share that yet. But I can tell you that it will be splendid! To be continued when it’s finished.

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

Rose hip vest

It’s always a mixture of joy and sorrow to finish a project. Joy for the garment I can now wear and enjoy. Sorrow for the process that has come to an end. Still, the process is literally woven into the garment, keeping me warm and cozy. Today I present my finished Rose hip vest.

Last week I showed you the finished twill weave from my handspun singles yarns. Today I invite you to the rest of the journey of making the Rose hip vest. The name comes from the finull lamb Nypon (Rose hip), whose fleece become the weft in the project.

The Rose hip vest is finished!

The model

A while ago I stumbled upon an Instagram ad showing a vesty/shawly sort of garment. It was made out of three identical panels, two for the front and one for the back. There were holes in the side seams for the arms and the garment was reversible both inside out and upside down. I really liked the idea of the reversibility as well as the very simple model. And drape has always fascinated me. The construction of just three panels would be excellent for a hand woven cloth with minimum waste. This would be the perfect model for the weaving project I was planning.

Dimensions

As I calculated the width and length of the weave I had to consider of course the measurements I wanted for the garment, but also the reality of the meterage I had spun. My basis was the width of my shoulders and the length I wanted in both directions – waist length and knee-ish length. I had to fiddle a bit and compromize to fit the model into the meterage I had, but I worked it out good enough in the end. A little narrower than I had planned, but it would hopefully still work.

A simple construction of three identical panels, sewn together with a figure 8 stitch, and holes for the arms.

I decided to weave all the three panels in one length. The warp was nearly five meters long, longer than I had ever warped before. But with just a minor disaster it all worked out.

Minimum waste, maximum cloth

The construction with the three panels was a perfect way to minimize the waste, I didn’t need to cut any pieces off, just sew them together. Since I wanted the vest to be reversible I needed to finish it without a designated front or back, with seams that were neat and tidy.

A buttonhole stitch makes a neat edging.

The assembling would also have to be on a very strict cloth budget. Because of the measurements I had to sew it together with no hemming. I fringed the warp ends – perfect for a reversible garment – and used a figure 8 stitch for the side seams (which had double selvedge warp threads).

Seams

I used two seams in this garment: A figure 8 stitch for joining the panels together and a buttonhole stitch for front edges, armholes and side slits. All seams are sewn with thrums.

I joined the panels with a figure 8 stitch right at the edges of the selvedges. A buttonhole stitch finished the armholes. Weft dominated side facing.

I really liked joining the panels with the figure 8 stitch. There is something simple about it, just up through one side, down in the middle and up again through the other side. No hemming, just stitching right at the outermost warp threads of the selvedges. And it presents such a nice seam. It also hid some of my less fashionable weft edge loops.

Fringes, buttonhole stitch and figure 8 stitch. Warp dominated side facing.

I hadn’t planned on doing anything in particular with the raw edges, but I realized they would look more finished with some seam love. A buttonhole stitch with no ambition whatsoever to look neat or even. Just a simple edging to match the rather loose weave.

Reversible

With the unhemmed, unfolded seams and the fringe there is no right or wrong side on this garment. One side is warp-faced with the darker, shiny outercoat warp yarn dominating. The other weft-faced with the lighter, soft undercoat weft yarn dominating. I will probably wear it weft side in and warp side out, but I could wear it the other way. When the inside of the collar folds outward no wrong side shows.

Warp and weft sides of the finished fabric.

I had planned to be able to wear it as a waist-length vest too, with a longer collar, as was shown in the vest I was inspired by in the first place. This didn’t look very good with my fabric, though. Due to the limited meterage I had to play with, my panels were narrower than the one I had been inspired by, and the long collar didn’t drape the way I wanted it to. Therefore I let that idea go and added the side slits in what I decided to be the bottom to accommodate for the narrow panels.

Welcome to the show!

More than a garment

I love the way the vest came out. My friend Cecilia burst out ”Wow!! How deliciously raw!” And yes, I do like that raw look of it. It has a soft drape that still feels very elegant. I feel embraced rather than suffocated and the vest isn’t too warm. I keep all the sides together and in order with a shawl pin underneath the collar.

I’m feeling very cozy in my Rose hip vesty-shawly garment.

So much time, skill and love is literally woven into this garment. It is so much more than a vest now. The fibers have gone through my hands hundreds of times through wool preparation, spinning, weaving and sewing. The process is in the garment, as are the thoughts that have gone through my mind during the process, all the podcasts I have listened to while weaving and all the mistakes I have made. Eventhough I may miss the process of making, all I have learned through the process keeps me warm when I wrap myself in the Rose hip vest.

And oh, the mittens are my own pattern, Heartwarming mitts, published in Spin-Off magazine fall 2019. The pattern seems to be free if you are a subscriber.

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

Twill weave

Last week I finally finished a weave that I have been working on since Christmas – weaving twill on a rigid heddle loom does take time. Today I present my newly cut down twill weave.

If you are a patron (or want to become one) you can see more of my twill weave and the cutting of the warp in my January and March 2023 video postcards.

Two medalists in the 2020 Swedish fleece championships are the foundation in this weaving project. Both the shepherdesses have received numerous medals in the championships over the years.

A seduction warp

The fleece I used for the warp yarn is a Swedish leicester/finull/Gotland mixbreed. It got the Wool guru’s seduction medal with the motivation from the founder of the prize, Alan Waller:

”I am seduced as if a fantasy drawing had become reality. A wool type of its own – that a fleece with such fine and soft fibers can exist in this enormous length! This kind of wool simply doesn’t exist […]. My spindle watches it with its single eye, wondering, longing, dreaming – what may become of this?” [my translation]

A white fleece with very long and silky staples.
Long and soft staples of Swedish leicester/finull/Gotland lamb combed into bird’s nests.

The staples are indeed long – 18 centimeters – and the fibers unusually soft for such a length. The shine is remarkable and I couldn’t really stay away from the sweet locks when I got them in my hands.

I combed the locks, which was quite a task considering their length, and spun worsted into a singles warp yarn. Look at those bird’s nests, aiming for the sky like newly piped cream buns.

Nypon/Rose hip

The other fleece was a Swedish finull lamb’s fleece that won a silver medal in the finull category. The lamb is named Nypon, which means Rose hip. A sweet shine and playful crimp, the softest of soft fibers.

A white fleece with fine, crimpy staples.
Soft and crimpy finull wool, teased and carded into rolags.

Finull was the first fleece I ever spun, so the sweet and crimpy staples feel like home to me. I teased the wool with a combing station, carded rolags and spun with an English longdraw into a woolen singles weft yarn.

In the dye pot

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am not a good dyer. Yet it doesn’t stop me from dyeing. I like warm colours, so usually I start by mixing equal parts blue, red and yellow to create a brown base. After that I add the colour I want. For the past few years I have had a teal period and I still do. I added a mix of three parts blue and one part yellow to the brown base and ended up with a colour I liked. I then dyed one warp bath with almost full colour saturation and one weft bath with a lot less, ending up with two shades of the same colour. Eventhough I had aimed for a slightly bluer shade and a higher contrast I still like the result.

Newly dyed balls of weaving yarn.

I had chained my skeins together to keep them in order in the dye bath, but forgot to loosen up the knots, so there are some spots with almost undyed yarn. This annoyed me of course, but looking at the finished weave I do like the perfectly imperfect colour variegation.

Singles

While almost almost all of my weaving projects with my handspun yarn has had singles weft yarn I have never woven with a singles warp, let alone a singles handspun warp yarn. With the very long fibers in the fleece I chose for the project I figured I might as well challenge myself to weave my very first singles warp. I knew it was a risk, but since I was going to weave a twill fabric I figured the setup would lead to less friction on the warp ends than a tabbe weave.

Warping my twill weave. You can see how the warp yarn still has energy.

To prepare the yarns, especially the warp, for a life in a weave I wound them rather tightly around pebbles. I learned this from a video with Andean spinning and weaving. This method helps removing some of the energy in the singles. While it did help some, there was still enough energy left to get me into some trouble. When I dressed my loom the warp ends wound themselves around each other which gave me work to do every time I advanced the warp. I had to manually detangle every warp thread to be able to make the advance.

Twill weave

A rigid heddle loom can, in its original execution, only weave tabby. I have an addition that makes it possible to weave with a second heddle. With this I can weave things like double weave and two separate layers that are folded in one or two ends. With the two heddles, a heddle stick and an extra warp stick I can create the four shafts I need for a 3/1 twill. I have done this a couple of times before.

The homemade four shafts: Two rigid heddles, one warp stick and one heddle stick (screenshot from patron video).

While it does take time I love the method and, what’s more important, I understand it. A regular loom is way too complicated for me with all its possibilities. I do the other way around and start with a very simple loom and add on when I feel I have the skill to and/or deserve it. The fact that it is even possible to make a four shaft weave in a simple loom is just lovely!

Two sides

Now, back to the yarns I spun – one shiny and strong, the other soft and warm. With a 3/1 twill I can weave a fabric with one side that is warp dominated and the other weft dominated. This means that the warp dominated side is shiny, strong and weather resistant, just like the tips of a double coated fleece protecting the sheep against the rain. The weft dominated side in turn, is soft and warm similarly to how the undercoat protects the sheep against cold. I created a fabric that is for me what the fleeces once were to the sheep.

Weaving my twill weave in the local weaving room.

Since I dyed the weft and warp yarns in different shades, the weft facing side is slightly lighter than the warp facing side.

A finished fabric

After nearly hyper ventilating I managed to cut down the warp. And I really loved the result. The fabric has just the drape I was looking for and I love the difference in the warp and weft faced sides. There were lots of broken warp threads along the way, which I had anticipated. As always, my mistakes create a map of what I have learned, a map that is especially clear in a weaving project.

The warp is cut and teh weave released into the wild (screenshots from patron video).

Every inch of the yarn has been used. Just a couple of meters were left of the warp yarn after warping. I used those to rescue and join broken warp threads during the weaving. I used all the weft yarn down to the last centimeter. All that is left are the thrums. And I will find good use for them too.

The twill weave got even softer after washing, especially on the weft facing side, of course. A garment is finished and I will tell you all about it in an upcoming blog post.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to 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

Vävstuga

Whenever I want to weave something bigger than a band I take my rigid heddle loom down to the local vävstuga. A vävstuga is a local weaving room, but also so much more.

If you are a patron (or want to become one) you can see more of the vävstuga where I weave in my March 2022, June 2022 and January 2023 video postcards.

Vävstuga – the local weaving room

Väv means weave and stuga means cottage. A vävstuga is a space, not necessarily a cottage, where members can come and weave, sort of a local a weaving room. Back when people were weaving for their household needs or for textile manufacturers many homes had their own looms. With the Industrial Revolution moving weaving to the textile industries, private looms were less common. Local weaving rooms started emerging in Sweden in the 1950’s.

A vävstuga with six floor looms and lots of tools and material. My rigid heddle loom to the left.

It’s difficult to tell how many weaving rooms there are in Sweden, but in a bachelor’s thesis about the vävstuga I read that there there are at least 900 throughout Sweden, probably a lot more.

My local vävstuga

In my area of around 1000 households in six housing associations there are two weaving rooms, both equipped with five or six floor looms plus weaving tools and material. The weaving rooms were planned when the area was built in the mid -80’s and the looms were paid for by the housing associations. I pay an annual fee of around $40 plus any material I use (which I don’t since I use my handspun yarns only). This is where I went when I first wanted to learn to weave.

The 2023 spring weaving has begun in my local vävstuga.

Every season the members come together to plan what to weave on each loom. Everyone gets a slot in the weaving queue for their desired project. I started out like that too, but quite quickly realized that the system didn’t work for me. Since basically all members are senior citizens they weave during the day and get quite a lot done. I only have a couple of hours on the weekend. Also, I wanted to weave my handspun yarns. So I bought a rigid heddle loom. Whenever I have a weaving project I bring it to the vävstuga.

You can see a previous project I wove in the vävstuga here.

A whisper from way back when

My vävstuga is screaming of the -80’s, in every wall colour, flooring, interior decoration and the looms. Even the weaving patterns the members use are from the -80’s.

A narrower floor loom where I once wove a towel or two.

Before we moved to our town house we lived in a flat just like the vävstuga. The preschool where our children went half a lifetime ago lies in the vävstuga building. About eight years ago, when my then twelve year old son came in to the vävstuga for the first time he stopped the second he passed the threshold. In a single breath he relived all the smells of the apartment where he had lived the first six years of his life and of the preschool. He decided to treat the vävstuga as sort of a sacred place, where he didn’t allow himself to use his mobile phone. He wanted to savour the air and the memories that came rushing over him.

A twill thrill

My current project is a twill weave in my handspun yarn. “Twill?”, you may say. “On a rigid heddle loom?”. Yes, twill on a rigid heddle loom. A rigid heddle loom is originally a two shaft loom, but with a double heddle, a shed stick and a heddle stick I am able to create a four shaft weave. It is quite fiddly and takes a lot of time, but it works. I have always been a bit intimidated by large floor looms with numerous possibilities that I will never understand. My rigid heddle loom is simple enough for me to get a grip of and expand when I need to. So fiddly and time consuming twill it is.

It’s a slow process and takes both patience and hair spray, but I’m in no hurry.

I’m weaving with handspun singles in both warp and weft. It’s definitely a thriller, the warp gets very fuzzy. After having consulted my weaving friend Maria I spray it with hair spray after every advance. It works surprisingly well.

A map of what I have learned

Just a few warp threads have broken so far and I know by now how to fix them, almost without panicking. I remember one of my first weaves where about 30 warp threads broke. I did panic, but I also realized that I just had to fix them. Until then I had spent so much time, love and dedication on spindle spinning all the yarn and I just couldn’t just let it go to waste.

A map of what I have learned.

This is my approach to every weaving experiment I tangle myself into. As I say to my students: My mistakes are a map of what I have learned. And it’s quite evident in my weaving. It is the bumpiest, prettiest and most endearing map.

I’m almost half-way on my weave and there is a whole spectrum of challenges and potential disasters ahead. But I will finish and all will be well. I’ll write a separate post when I’m done, telling you all about the wool, the spinning, weaving and finished project.

Hello Weavy!

When I skip down to the weaving room and open the door I say “Hej Vävis!” (roughly translated to “Hello Weavy!”), my heart tingling with weaving anticipation. The vävstuga is a place where I get to spend time with my weave and see it grow centimeter by centimeter, a place where I get to create with no other projects or tasks calling for my attention, a place where I get to learn.

I’m weaving twill in the vävstuga on my sweet rigid heddle loom.

Time does seem to have stopped in the vävstuga. Yet, all I can hear is the sound of the beater adding row after row to the fell and the ticking of the wall clock. Usually I get to the vävstuga in the morning before the other members come. I relish in the silence, the liberating lack of clutter, things to be done. In the vävstuga I allow my thoughts to come and go, like the shuttle stick moving through the sheds. Like a breath moving between my inner and outer worlds.

When I turn the light off I pet my weave, thank it and take my leave with a “Hejdå Vävis!”. The weave and the weaving vibrate in my heart and hands as I walk back home.

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

Auld acquaintance

A few years ago started spinning and two-end knitting a pair of jacket sleeves. I have been working on them more off than on through the years and almost forgot about them. Recently my auld acquaintance was brought back to mind.

Back in early 2019 I had recently finished a pattern for a pair of two-end knitted mittens in Spin-Off magazine. Tvåändsstickning, or two-end knitting, is a time-consuming but very rewarding knitting technique, resulting in a sturdy and wind-proof material. The structure is dense and inelastic and in that sense more like woven than knitted fabric. When I finish a two-end knitted project there are lots of hours invested in it, but somehow it’s hard to let go of. The technique may be slow, but such a joy to dance my hands and mind in.

Jacket sleeves in tradition

A century or so ago two-end knitted jacket sleeves were common in county Dalarna in Sweden. I have been itching to knit myself a pair of jacket sleeves, but as I realized they would take a very long time to knit due to a slow knitting method and two millimeter needles, I hesitated.

Two-end knitted jacket sleeves from Karin Kahnlund’s impressive collection. The sleeves were generally knitted in natural white and black and then dyed red. Every village in the area had their own significant pattern.

However, back in 2018, when a shepherdess asked me if I wanted to buy some singled out very long locks of her flock of dalapäls sheep, I thought of my imagined jacket sleeves and I couldn’t resist the offer. Dalapäls wool is very fine and has a remarkable sheen. Since both the tradition of two-end knitted jacket sleeves and the breed Dalapäls sheep originate from county Dalarna there is a possibility that Dalapäls wool has been the traditional wool for the sleeves. When I got the locks they were the spark for my jacket sleeve project.

Long, white and wavy wool locks.
Long and silky locks of Dalapäls sheep. The locks come from different sheep.

I mean, who could resist knitting jacket sleeves with yarn from locks like these, despite the overwhelm a project like that could bring?

Two-end knitting

Tvåändsstickning, or two-end knitting is an old technique mostly found in Scandinavia. The oldest finding of a twined knitting textile dates back to around the mid 16th century to the early 17th century in county Dalarna in Sweden. There are many garments and accessories left in County Dalarna – mittens, socks and jackets. Usually the sleeves only were knit in two-end knitting while the torso was sewn of broadcloth.

Two-end knitted jacket sleeves in the making. The twisting of the yarn ends at the back of the project also puts a twist in the yarn ends coming from the skein. To untwist the two-end knitter regularly lets the yarn ball hang to untwist itself.

As the name of the technique suggests you use two strands of yarn in two-end knitting. The passive strand is carried at the back of the project. You knit with the strand furthest from the active stitch. This means that after one stitch is made the two yarns are twisted around each other at the back of the work. This also means that even though two-end knitting is done with fine needles, the twisting of the yarn ends makes the fabric strong, sturdy and windproof. It will last for generations. You can read more about two-end knitting in this blog post.

A common English translation for tvåändsstickning is twined knitting. Read in Knit (Spin) Sweden! (second edition) about why two-end knitting is a more fitting translation.

From the cut end

For my jacket sleeves I spun the Dalapäls yarn – S spun and Z plied as is the tradition for two-end knitting – on a supported spindle. I chose to lightly open up staple by staple with a flicker and spin from the cut ends. You can see a glimpse of it in my video Catch the light, where I dwell in the sweet midsummer light, right at the opposite end of the year from when I am writing this.

I open up staple by staple with a flicker.

After having teased with the flicker I tease it more with my hands, draft it out sideways like an accordion and roll it into a burrito and spin from the cut end. I used to only open up the staple with the flicker, but lately I have added the hand teasing, sideways opening and burrito roll. I think it paves the way for a more thorough preparation while still keeping some of the integrity of the original staple. You can read more about this technique here.

After having opened up the staple with the flicker I tease it again, by hand. I spread the loose staple accordion sideways and roll it into a burrito and spin from the cut ends. Hence, an accordion burrito.

Spinning from such a light preparation can be a challenge, but it is also deeply satisfying to be able to create a yarn from such light a preparation. The staple is still nearly recognizable and the opened up fibers fall into the twist next to each other pretty much in the same order they were in the staple.

Cast on and on

Back to the spinning of my z-plied two-end knitting yarn. Eight skeins and a few months later I cast on for my jacket sleeves. Since the technique is very slow the sleeves have accompanied me on many occasions – in the shadow at the allotment, on trains and on a trip to Gotland. And, of course, in a video that I made in Visby, Gotland back in 2019.

A woman knitting in a ruin. There is no roof in the ruin.
Jacket sleeve two-end knitting in St Clemens’ ruin in Visby, Gotland, 2019.

As I reached above the elbow I realized I needed to rip a substantial part up to alter the size, which was moderately fun. For some reason I forgot about the sleeves for quite a while. When I reconnected with them again I needed to alter them back. Just recently I caught up to the clean and un-frogged yarn and I realized that I needed to spin some more yarn.

During this recent autumn the sleeves have been a solid friend on office meetings and conferences. Several colleagues have whispered to me how calm they have felt by just watching me knit.

A cup of kindness

As I paid my dalapäls sheepheredess friend Lena a visit a while ago I bought a bag of newly shorn wool from her ewe Nehne, who had the right length of staples for my two-end knitting yarn.

Raw locks from Lena’s dalapäls sheep Nehne.

Lena is a strong and kind woman, doing all she can for her sheep and for others. She knows all of her sheep by name and by fleece. Dalapäls sheep is a heritage breed. As such usually has a wide spectrum of wool types and wool qualities over the breed, within a flock and even over the body of a single sheep. As I asked Lena for the kind of staples I was looking for, she immediately replied “Well, that would be Nehne or Ninni”. And she was right. Nehne’s fleece had long staples with very soft undercoat fibers and strong outercoat fibers, and with that very special Dalapäls shine. A perfect candidate for my jacket sleeves. Lena wouldn’t even charge for the fleece.

The fleece of the Dalapäls sheep Nehne is drying in front of the fireplace after washing.

That evening Lena and I talked for hours over a sweet dinner she had prepared for us while the fire mumbled quietly in the background. I picked up my jacket sleeves and started knitting. The paper bag with Nehne’s fleece stood on the floor by the fireplace.

Bringing back to mind

I washed the fleece as I got home and started spinning. I used the same technique I had used back in 2018. Within seconds it all came back to me – the joy of spinning on a supported spindle. It’s funny, supported spindle spinning may be the technique that others most associate me with, and yet I haven’t spun on a supported spindle for anything but teaching for the past few years. As I started spinning Nehne’s wool I immediately fell back in love with the technique.

Auld and new acquaintance

I have a long fleece queue and I try my best to spin the oldest first. This means that the bag I pick up to prepare has been compressed in the bag in my storage for a while. Even if I have picked all staples prior to the storage, they can be a little flat and the fibers catching on to their neighbours.

Spinning Nehne’s Dalapäls wool on a supported spindle by Björn Peck. The mini heddle around my neck was carved by Kerstin Neumüller (and the band woven by me, with the mini heddle).

With this project, however, I wanted to finish my sleeves, so Nehne’s fleece very rudely cut in line in the fleece queue. Spinning this very fresh wool was (is) such a joy. The wool had just been lightly placed in a paper bag, never put in the storage. The staples were bold and bouncy and with such a sweet shine. Since I make the preparation directly before I start spinning I had the joy of spinning my accordion burritos very freshly prepared. The fibers are so light, so smooth to draft, softly singing their way into the twist like fairies in the early morning mist.

Plying and making a skein of my sweet dalapäls yarn.

Spinning the freshly prepared wool from the newly shorn fleece on a supported spindle reminded me of breathing – the constant changing back and forth between the inner and outer worlds, light as a feather. The rhythm of spinning is not far from the rhythm of life.

New horizons

Even if the spinning of this yarn instantly came back to my spinning muscles and mind, it was still with a new perspective. I have learned so much in the five years that have passed since last I spun this yarn. It was a true joy to bring these new horizons into the familiar spinning landscape. I’m so glad I revisited my auld acquaintance.

Staple to sleeve via teasing, spinning and plying. Supported spindles by Björn Peck.

During the holidays I have been spinning a lot on this project – I have already finished two skeins. Even though spindle spinning is a sweetly slow process it doesn’t take that long to fill a spindle and then a second. Alternating between spinning and teasing keeps a sweet rhythm and change in perspectives.

Two finished skeins of Z-plied Dalapäls wool, spun from lightly teased locks of Dalapäls wool on a supported spindle by Björn Peck.

Have you revisited an old project lately?

On my Instagram page you can watch a series of videos where I work from opening up the lock to knitting the sleeves. At the top of my profile are some highlights. The series is called stapletosleeve (I omitted the spaces between the words because the thing wouldn’t accept too many letters in the title).

Happy new spinning year!

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.
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Swim cap

I made me a swim cap! Perhaps not the kind you would expect when you read the words swim cap. This swim cap is made from my spindle spun yarn, nalbound, waulked and embroidered, all to keep me warm during my daily baths through the winter.

When my wool traveling club and I decided to take a course in the påsöm embroidery technique for our 2022 wool journey I started planning projects on which I could play with påsöm. I wanted to try the embroidery on different wool structures. At the same time I longed for another nalbinding project and knew a nalbinding hat would be the perfect candidate. I decided to make the hat a swim cap for my daily cold baths.

I made me the loveliest swim cap for cold baths. It’s not that cold yet, though, 11°C in both air and water this week when I took the picture.

Back and forth

I used wool from Elsa the Gestrike sheep for this yarn. While I wanted to make the hat I also wanted the process to be sweet and grounding. I decided to card, spin and ply one spindleful at a time and nalbind that little ball of yarn until I had to spin another ball. It became sort of an explorative process where I also got the chance to test the quality of the spun yarn in my nalbinding and get instant feedback that I could loop back into the spinning of the next ball of yarn. The approach thus became a dynamic dance back and forth in the steps of the process, an empirical exploration of a new course of action and an evaluation of the yarn. The method was quite satisfying!

Sweet rolags make the foundation of my woolen spun yarn.

You can read more about this method in a previous post about the making of the hat and a pair of mittens, and also in a blog post about the making of my Moroccan snow shoveling pants that were made with the same approach.

Safety hat

During the spring we slowly went back to working at the office after the pandemic. I thrived when working full time from home and was quite stressed about having to go back, even if I would still be able to work fifty percent from home. When going back to the office I knew I needed a coffee break project to breathe myself through the noise and crowdedness at the office.

I have spun this yarn over several months, during both winter and summer. It’s been a treat every time.

Nalbinding was the perfect safety blanket project, or rather safety hat. With nalbinding I always feel very safe – I think it has something to do with the grip of the project. I spun a ball at home and nalbound at work through late winter and spring.

The making of the swim cap has been a dance between carding, spinning, plying, nalbinding and back to carding again, one spindle load at a time. The center picture shows some nalbinding needles I made this spring.

The nalbinding has also been with me on the train to Austria and in the car to my aunt’s funeral. I have bound lots of memories and experiences into this hat.

A hat guide

I tried a new to me stitch for this project, the Oulu stitch. It’s a stitch in the Russian stitch family and quite like the Dalby stitch which I have used for several projects. They both create a structure with yarn in different directions, making the fabric dense and warm.

I used the Olou stitch for the swim cap. To the right you can see the final stitches, where I led the spiral to the back of the brim.

As I have never nalbound a hat before I used the hat guide Mervi Pasanen’s lovely book With one needle to help me with the shape and size.

From the book I also learned a new way to end a project. Nalbinding is usually done in a spiral. I started at the tip of the hat and increased in a certain pattern until I reached the finished size. Usually I try to make the stitches smaller and smaller, thus creating an even-ish edge. But the suggestion in the book was to continue the spiral on the back of the project, creating the tiniest wrap. I am really pleased with this neat solution.

Waulking

While nalbinding in its criss-cross nature is very hard-wearing and wind proof, these characteristics will get a boost from waulking. The material gets denser, warmer and more protecting against the wind and the cold.

The difference between unwaulked and waulked is quite tangible.

Also, any management of a yarn with kemp in it will little by little push the quirky fibers out, making the resulting yarn or fabric warmer (since the escaped kemp fibers leave air pockets) and softer. I saved the kemp fibers that worked their way out of the hat in the waulking and got quite an impressive little ball of kemp. In the before and after pictures above there is a difference in the shade of the grey, which may partly have to do with the difference in kemp.

Mervi Pasanen’s book With one needle to the left, a little ball of waulked out kemp to the right.

Waulking a project is always an adventure. I know by now that nalbinding shrinks mainly widthwise and very little lengthwise. So whenever I nalbind I make the proportions to fit that rule of thumb – a pair of mittens will be a lot wider than my hands but not very much longer. Still, waulking a project takes lots of testing and fine-tuning. I had imagined a steeper tapering of the tip, but I still like the resulting shape of it.

Påsöm embroidery

I planned the flower composition on my påsöm embroidery wool journey earlier this autumn. The most important thing really was to find a way to transfer the flower pattern to the very fuzzy waulked surface. I found a pen that worked okay, but still way better than anything I had tried before.

At my wool journey I planned the flower outline of the cap (and another project) and made the first stitches of the main flower (left). Middle and right you can see the layout of the flower stem.

It was quite interesting to work the pattern in the three dimensional canvas that a hat is. I have always been biased to bias in hats – a biased brim, pattern or shape, just because why not. I decided to go for that with the hat too, in both the placement of the pattern, the direction of the stem and the asymmetry of the hat (or rather the tip hanging to one side).

Left, right and front, lots of rich blossom in all dimensions.

The flower arrangement starts with a center dahlia (with the center on the right side of my head) from which one stem winds out to either side, ending on the left side with a green leaf. Another stem winds upwards and spirals around the tip of the hat with smaller flowers.

A sweet swim cap

Even if it’s not particularly cold in either air or water yet, I have of course tried using my sweet swim cap in my dips in the lake. The hat is very warm and cozy and the tassel keeps dangling just above the water surface. I am really looking forward to colder days with some ice. I think the hat will do an excellent work even at -18°C like we had a couple of times last winter.

The center dahlia is on the right side of my head, with stems winding to the left and right and up the tip.

A hat may be finished, but as always it’s so much more than a hat. It’s a part of a sweet dance, a safety blanket, an explo(ra)tion in colour and design and the result of many hours of just hanging out with wool.

Resources

As I posted a sneak preview of today’s post yesterday a couple of people mentioned having started to learn to nalbind bot never got much further. While this post doesn’t give you much of guidance to nalbinding I have put together a list of nalbinding resources for you.

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.