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Cutting corners?

I spend a lot of my time with a fleece at the preparation stage. This is where I lay the foundation for the quality of the yarn. But sometimes I cut corners and skip steps. Sometimes I add an extra step or extra time to increase the quality or the experience of the spinning. Today I reflect over when and why I’m cutting corners or create new ones.

The other day I told my husband about a recent project where I had cut corners for the sake of the shorter fluff to stuff cycle and an instant feedback between the steps. He paused and asked me “What makes you decide what corners to cut?”. And Voilá, a blog post idea was born.

Cornerstones of processing

There are several steps I take on the journey from fleece to yarn. All of them important for the quality of the product. Sometimes, though, the quality of the yarn may not be my first priority. I very rarely skip something because I want it done faster, I know it doesn’t serve me. But there may be other dimensions I am interested in for a specific project.

After washing the fleece I go through a number of stages. You can read more thoroughly about some of them in the post Fleece happens.

Fiber

First of all, I always work from raw fleece and wash it in water only. I want to get to know the fleece from the very beginning. That means I don’t buy fleece that someone else has washed. I don’t buy wool that someone else or a machine has processed. There is so much information in the steps I take before I spin the wool that I don’t want to be without. All steps offer a unique chance to explore the wool and find out its innermost secrets. All steps are appealing to me and give me peace. I don’t see any of the wool preparation steps as time consuming. Instead I see them as gifts that can reveal the secrets of the wool if I just listen to it.

Newly shorn autumn fleece from a Swedish Gestrike sheep.
Newly shorn autumn fleece from a Swedish Gestrike sheep.

I don’t cut any corners when it comes to the fiber. To me, too much information is lost in commercially prepared fiber and I don’t feel connected to it as I do with a fleece that has come straight from the hoof.

Picking

Picking is where I pick each staple to separate it from the mass of the fleece. In this the staple may open up slightly, easing felted or tangled parts and allowing vegetable matter to fall out. I also get a unique opportunity to go through the fleece with my hands, literally staple by staple, getting to know its characteristics. During picking I also get rid of second cuts, dirt, felted parts or otherwise lesser quality wool.

I'm listening to my Icelandic wool.
Picking the fleece. No cutting corners here.

At the beginning of my spinning journey I did this with all my fleeces. But somewhere along the way I omitted it, I’m not sure why. Lately, though, I have started picking my fleeces again and realize what a time, muscle and fiber saver it is. A fleece that has been picked is so much easier to handle than an unpicked fleece. When I start working with a fleece that I have picked before storing I know it has gone through a quality control. If I’m lucky I have made some notes during picking that are useful as I continue the processing.

Picking is not a corner I want to cut. It may take time as I do it, but it does save both time, muscles and fiber. Processing will be easier and less straining for both me and the fiber. I believe that a picked fleece will result in a higher quality yarn with a higher fleece to yarn yield.

Teasing

I always tease my wool before carding. One way or another, be it with combs, flicker, cards, hands or by separating undercoat from outercoat. I never skip this step. When I tease the wool I open it up and ease the hold the fibers have on each other. This makes it easier on my arms as well as on the fibers. Should I cut corners on teasing I would be able to work for a shorter time due to strained arms and hands. The yarn would be of a worse quality since unteased locks will protest in the carding, break fibers, create nepps that interrupt my spinning flow and leave a lumpy yarn. A teased wool will therefore generate a higher fleece to yarn yield, have a higher quality and leave my body happier.

Teased wool from rya fleece.

When I comb wool for the sake of combing (as opposed to using combs to tease), the wool will be teased as I comb. Sometimes though, the staples are so dense or felted that I add another corner and tease with a flicker before I comb.

You can read more about teasing here.

Carding and combing

I generally either card or comb my wool. This is the stage where I pre-chew my fiber before spinning. It is definitely possible to spin unprepared (or only teased) wool, but without pre-chewing the spinning will be chunkier and require more effort. During the winter I have spun a low-twist singles Lopi-style yarn from lightly teased locks of Icelandic wool. The purpose was not to cut corners. Rather, it was to preserve the natural colour variegation in the staples. The preparation was chunkier and did require more effort. But all according to my plan.

Carding and combing. I don’t cut corners here.

Any tool that allows me to be a part of the mechanics – be it a spindle, hand cards or a backstrap loom is a tool where I get feedback directly from the fiber. With this as guidance I will be able to to make informed decisions about how to proceed.

If you find combing and carding by hand tedious, try picking and teasing the wool first. I can promise you a difference – the flow in the carding or combing dance will be a lot smoother. You will be able to feel the characteristics of the fibers and their relationship to each other between your hands.

How about drum carding?

I don’t drum card my wool. I don’t own a drum carder. The one time I tried it, it seemed to take as long as hand-carding but with a less balanced body position and lesser quality. Also using the drum carder doesn’t give me the feedback I get from the wool when I hand-card.

Spinning

In my videos and webinars you mainly see me with a spindle of some kind. I do spin on my spinning wheel too, actually more than I spin on spindles. Usually I spin larger projects on my spinning wheel. With that said, I have spun several larger projects with spindles too, like the Cecilia’s bosom friend shawl and the prototype leading up to it, and my Moroccan snow shoveling pants that I knit from 1 kilo of super bulky spindle spun yarn.

Wheel or spindle? Well, sometimes both!

I usually pick the spinning tool that I think is the best for the project and the context. Perhaps I want to spin different yarns simultaneously, well, then I may spin one or two on spindles and another on my spinning wheel. I do have two wheels, but only room for one stationary wheel. And there is always room for spindles.

Plying

Plying is not something I have dived into like I have on other parts of the process from fleece to yarn, so I can’t say I know much about it. Perhaps it is therefore I sometimes allow myself to cut corners at the plying stage.

Resting singles

For the singles to compose themselves after I have filled a bobbin it is a good idea to allow them to rest. I usually do this, not always overnight, but at least until the evening. If I just want to test a yarn and spin a sample I tend to skip this step.

Reversing singles

I have learned that it is a good idea to reverse the singles before plying, so that I ply the singles together from the same end I have spun them, especially when it comes to worsted spun yarn. Spinning and plying from the same end will allow for a smoother yarn while spinning and plying from different ends may result in a slightly fuzzier yarn. To reverse the singles for plying I take the two (or more) singles and roll them together on an empty bobbin, so that I ply all singles from one and the same bobbin, from the same end they were spun. I try to follow this recommendation, but sometimes I cut corners here.

Plying from separate bobbins

When I spin on my wheel I spin each single on a separate bobbin. As I ply the yarn from the bobbins all singles come into the plying twist in the same way. But when I spin on spindles I may wind the yarn into a centerpull ball and ply from the inner and outer ends of that single into a 2-ply yarn.

Sometimes I ply from other ends of a centerpull ball. Just because I want to.

I am fully aware that the inner and outer ends of the yarn will come differently into the plying twist. But sometimes I do cut corners here. Most recently with my Moroccan snow shoveling pants and a pair of nalbinding mittens. For the pants I wanted to stay as close as possible to the original procedure from wool to knitting. When it comes to the mittens I was after the short fluff to stuff cycle and instant feedback from one step of the process to the next.

Soaking and setting twist

I do soak most of my yarns and set the twist. But there have been situations when I have cut corners here. Like in the two projects above where I plied from the two ends of a centerpull ball. I wanted to stay close to the traditional making of the pants and I wanted a short fluff to stuff cycle for the mittens and have all the steps fresh in my memory. I know that the yarn is a bit unbalanced, and that is okay. The purpose of the project was to find peace of mind and focus when the world was, and still is, in full storm outside my crafting bubble.

I cut very few corners in the processing steps. High quality rolags come from time spent with the wool.

All in all, I sometimes do cut corners and I always know why I do it. It rarely is about saving time. In fact, I know that spending more time on processing may even save me time in the long run. It will definitely give me a higher quality yarn.

Do you cut corners? Where and why? Where don’t you cut corners? Share in the comments below.

Thank you darling Dan for your clever question about cutting corners. It made me reflect over my process and what is important to me.

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 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
  • 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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Peace of mind

These are troubled times. When my mind is racing and I need something to focus on I turn to nalbinding. Simple (but not easy), close and slow. Nalbinding gives me some peace of mind in a chaotic world.

All you need to nalbind is a thumb, some yarn, a blunt needle and time. Yes, nalbinding does take time, but it also means you get to spend time with the material you are creating, following every stitch over, under, behind, under, over again, through and around the thumb. Unlike knitting where I tend to zone out sometimes, nalbinding softly whispers for your attention.

A little over, a little under and around the thumb and you have yourself a nalbinding stitch.

Empirical mittens

I decided to work this process as simply as possible. Tease some wool, card some rolags, spin some singles on a suspended spindle. As the spindle gets too heavy for a comfortable spin I wind the singles into a centerpull ball and ply from there on the spindle. I end up with a sweet ball of around 12 grams. That leaves me enough yarn for a couple of rounds on each mitten. I get into a rhythm between preparing, spinning and nalbinding without getting tired of any one part. I also don’t get fatigued or strained by doing one step for a long time.

A short fluff to stuff cycle allows me to be in the moment while learning from all steps in an integrated way.

With a short fluff to stuff cycle like this I get a sense of presence in all the steps. I can make the connection between all the parts of the process and get instant feedback from one step to the next in sort of an empirical mini – or mitten in this case – study.

On my Instagram account I have saved a video series as a highlight called Fluff to stuff, where I go through the process from carding to nalbinding in this project. I have of course teased the wool first, you can read more about that here.

In the moment

I also break the rules and omit some of the steps I normally take – I don’t let the singles sit overnight, I don’t soak the yarn and set the twist before using it. Why? Because I don’t feel like it. In this process like to feel the instant feedback from the previous step into the present and from the present to the next. As the world spins at the moment I just want to be in the moment, channeling my worried mind into that particular step of the process. I need crafting in my hands and in my brain to bring some peace of mind in a chaotic world.

I get instant feedback between steps as I work with a short fluff-to-stuff cycle.

To be honest I don’t think too much about consequences of my choices, they are not the important thing here. And I don’t always have to make conscious choices. Sometimes the wool and the tools make the appropriate choices for me.

The safety of wool

Nalbinding is an activity where I feel truly in the craft. My hands are literally in the project since my thumb is the actual stitch gauge. For every stitch I make the yarn goes around and over my thumb, making it a tool just as important as the needle. The unwashed yarn smells of sheep and leaves a whisper of lanolin on my hands. The slow process of under-over-under-behind-between and under again brings a focus and a slow pace rhythm that is just what I need and can handle right now.

A forgiving craft

I make lots of choices in this project – where I break rules and skip steps. Luckily nalbinding is a forgiving craft, for several reasons.

  • The slowness makes it easier to plan your next step.
  • You basically can’t loose a stitch. You only have the one stitch on your thumb to keep track of (depending on the stitch you have chosen for the project). Should you loose it for some reason it will just tighten and the spiraling construction will lead directly to it.
  • I waulk all my nalbinding projects for extra strength and durability. Any fitting or other irregularities will be smoothed out at the waulking board.
  • Nalbinding is generally worked in a spiral. That way it is easy to shape the project as you go along.
  • Since nalbinding is a sewn technique you can’t work with a continuous strand of yarn. Instead you work with shorter sections – I use three arm’s lengths for each turn. Joins are a natural and inevitable part of the technique.
Nalbinding is a slow process but the fabric will last forever. Alder cone spindle by Wildcraft

Thoughts on nalbinding

Stitches

There are lots of stitches on different difficulty levels to choose from. When I started out I found very few descriptions on left-handed nalbinding. This actually made it easier for me to choose – I could only work with the ones that were described for lefties. After a while I got the hang of the principles and could translate the right-handed instructions in my head.

For Dan’s mittens I chose the Dalby stitch.

Needle

You need a large blunt needle. I have four – one that I bought at Birka World heritage, one I carved from an elm just outside our house and two that kind-hearted supporters made for me. Perhaps I should make some more this spring. Spring is after all the perfect carving season and needles are always welcome.

Lovely nalbinding needles. From the left: Hand-carved by me from an elm tree just outside our house, hand-carved by a student, hand-carved by a supporter and bought at Birka World Heritage.

Yarn

I haven’t really thought so much about the yarn for nalbinding. I like mine with quite a high twist, as my S-plied yarn untwists a bit as I work with my left hand. This means that for anyone working with S-plied yarn with the right hand the twist will instead increase.

2-ply yarn spun with longdraw from hand-carded rolags on a suspended spindle. Plied from both ends of a centerpull ball on a suspended spindle. The wool comes from the Gestrike Ewe Elsa.

It’s a good idea to work with a yarn that can stand the abrasion of going through the fabric so many times. A yarn from a dual coat wool is perfect to work with – it has the warmth of the undercoat and the strength from the outercoat. I used staples that I had sorted out from a Gestrike fleece, with mostly undercoat and a few strands of outercoat.

I spun my yarn woolen from hand-carded rolags. A yarn like this tends to be weaker than a worsted spun yarn. However, the tension the yarn is under due to the weight of the suspended spindle makes the yarn a bit more dense that it would have been with another spinning tool. Also, the combination of undercoat and outercoat keeps the yarn strong but not too coarse.

It’s a good idea to use a wool that felts since you may want to waulk the finished project. You can read more about how I have waulked a pair of nalbound socks here.

Mittens for Dan

The nalbinding project I have been working on for the past few weeks is a pair of mittens for my husband Dan. It was a Christmas gift, but things got in the way and they were only half-finished for the holidays.

Finished and walked nalbinding mittens for Dan. May he not need them until next winter.

For the beginning of the mittens I used an Åsen wool yarn that I had spun for a previous pair of mittens. This particular Åsen fleece had mostly vadmal type staples – mostly warm and airy undercoat fibers and just a few strands of long and strong outercoat fibers. It was not particularly soft and I saw a big nalbinding yarn potential. The airy undercoat fibers would provide lightness and warmth while the few outercoat fibers would bind the fibers together and add strength and integrity to the yarn.

As always with pairs of anything I make both simultaneously. One yarn length on the left and another on the right. When I ran out of yarn I picked out similar staples from a Gestrike fleece and spun the same way – I carded rolags out of teased wool and spun woolen on a suspended spindle. I gave the yarn lots of twist to make sure it would stand the abrasion of going up and down in the nalbinding. The resulting yarn was round, strong and kind, and not too different from the white Åsen yarn.

I just hoped that the yarns would felt reasonably equally, and they did. A design born through a take-what -you-have situation is a good design, don’t you think?

Future nalbinding projects

I have been working comfortably with the Dalby stitch for a number of projects by now. After these mittens I think it’s time for something new. Perhaps a more intricate stitch, perhaps a hat. The possibilities are endless. Still, whatever I choose I know it will be a process where I can feel close to my work, both physically and mentally. Where I can be in the project with just the needle and yarn in my hand and some peace of mind.

A hat embryo for peace of mind at the office office.

To tell you the truth I actually did start another nalbinding project already. After two years of working from my home office I have to be at the office office at least 50 % of the time, starting Monday. With over 800 other people in an open landscape office. I need wool for protection and nalbinding is my project of choice. I’m making a hat.

Resources

Here are some lovely resources for nalbinding

  • On Neulakintaat you can see videos of a whole range of stitches for right-handed and a few for left-handed
  • Mervi Pasanen has written a beautiful book on nalbinding, With one needle
  • If you search for nalbinding on this blog you will find some more posts.

Last week I launched an auction for Ukraine. I donated my gold medal winning embroidery yarn to the highest bid and the money to UNHCR’s work in Ukraine. The highest bid was 200€. The second highest bidder donated her 150€ too and I added another 100€. So I sent 450€ to the Swedish UNHCR and the embroidery yarn to Australia. Also, a foundation is doubling all donations to the Swedish UNHCR, so 900€ are going to their work in Ukraine. Thank you all who participated!

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 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
  • 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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Teasing

When someone oohs and aahs over a handspun yarn I say “It’s all in the preparation”. When someone oohs and aahs over a mean hand-carded rolag I say “It’s all in the pre-preparation”. Today’s post is all about teasing.

Teasing is a way to open up the wool. Either as a single preparation or as a pre-preparation before the main preparation. Teasing wool before carding is an enormous help in getting even, high quality rolags that are a joy to spin.

Staples of rya wool and mohair, wool teased with combs and hand-carded rolags like peas in a pod.
Staples of rya wool and mohair, wool teased with combs and hand-carded rolags like peas in a pod.

I never put wool on my hand cards unless it is teased first. To me, carding is about arranging the fibers evenly and loftily. To do that – without putting too much strain on me and the fibers – I therefore tease first. Without exception. When I teach spinning I always include fiber preparation and teasing.

Why teasing?

When I tease I

  • open up the wool from its state as a bundle of staples. Air comes in between the fibers and makes the fibers more evenly distributed
  • spend more time with the wool
  • prepare to card high quality rolags.

With teasing I can

  • get more evenly carded rolags with less strain on my body and the wool
  • blend fibers, lengths fleeces or colours
  • remove vegetable matter
  • get rid of the shortest fibers
  • leave the teased wool before I card, while carded and combed wool needs to be treated as fresh produce
  • experience more ease and joy when I card.

Without teasing before carding

  • the wool will be more dense and require more force to separate
  • I may strain my shoulders, wrists and arms
  • fibers may break, leaving nepps in the preparation
  • the rolags will be of lesser quality
  • there may be a lot more waste than with teasing.
I gently add the teased wool to my hand card to create an evenly arranged rolag.
I gently add the teased wool to my hand card to create an evenly arranged rolag.

How I tease

I use different tools for teasing – my hands, combs and flickers. Which tool I use when depends on a variety of circumstances.

Teasing with combs

My go-to tool of teasing is combs, usually my larger combs with a combing station that I clamp onto a table (but of course hand held combs work well too). I can tease larger amounts of wool this way and without putting too much strain on my hands and wrists. When I tease with my combs I also have the opportunity to blend different breeds, fiber lengths or colours. You can see a video here where I tease wool that I blend with recycled sari silk. Teasing with combs also helps getting rid of vegetable matter.

Pulling the teased wool straight out of the stationary comb, perpendicular to the tines.
Pulling the teased wool straight out of the stationary comb, perpendicular to the tines.

Teasing with combs is similar to combing in the middle but different in the beginning and in the end. When I tease with combs I don’t consider the direction of the staples the way I would if I were combing – I just make sure there is as little wool as possible on the handle side of the comb. Other than that I just add the wool as it comes.

Värmland wool teased with combs, ready for carding.
Värmland wool teased with combs, ready for carding.

The middle part, the actual combing, is the same as when I comb for a top. When I pull the wool off the comb I don’t pull it in one long section like I would if I were combing, I just pull it in fiber-length tufts.

All my combs come from Gammeldags in Sweden and I highly recommend them, both the mini combs and the larger ones with a combing station to clamp onto the table. You can read more about combs in general and the Gammeldags combs in particular here.

Teasing with a flicker

In some circumstances I use a flicker to tease my wool. This could be if there are certain things I want to remove with the flicker. One example is Swedish finull. Since the finull fibers are so fine the tips can be brittle. To avoid nepps in my yarn I use the flicker to allow any breaking tips to break in the flicker and stay there instead of ending up as nepps in my yarn.

Another example is if the staples have a lot of kemp (or too short fibers in general) in the bottom. A flicker can do a good job in removing some of the kemp.

  • Teasing with a flicker to keep the colour variegation.
  • A person combing a staple of wool.
    I gently combed each lock separately not to disturb the structure of the fibers. Photo by Dan Waltin.
  • After flick carding the staples a lot of the kemp was left in the flick card.
    After teasing the staples with a flicker a lot of the kemp was left in the flicker.
Teasing with a flicker to keep a colour variegation or fiber distribution (left and middle) and for removing kemp (right).

To flick a staple I hold the cut end firmly and brush out the tip end with the flicker, using my thigh as support and a piece of leather as protection. I turn the staple and brush the other side of the tip. When the tip is teased I flip the staple to brush out both sides of the cut ends. I need to hold the staple quite close to the cut end to avoid having shorter fibers (but long enough for spinning) to stay in the flicker and go to waste.

Flicking as main preparation

I also use a flicker if I want to spin straight from the staples. Perhaps I want to keep something – a colour variegation or a fiber distribution. The flicker opens up the staple without disturbing the fibers in the staple too much and makes the spinning smoother. I used a flicker for my Icelandic fleece that I spun raw from the lock. I teased the staples with a flicker first and then opened up the teased staples further with my hands.

  • Close-up of a person spinning on a supported spindle.
    I’m spinning counter-clockwise to get a Z-plied yarn for twined knitting. Photo by Dan Waltin.
I’m spinning Icelandic wool from raw, flicked staples (left). In other projects I have spun flicked staples on a supported spindle to keep fiber distribution or colour variegation (middle and right).

Another project where I used flicked locks as the main preparation was a pair of two-end knitted mittens. I wanted to keep the colour variegation in the yarn and spun a z-plied yarn from teased locks with a supported spindle. You can read about the finished two-end knitted mittens here. The post includes links to earlier parts of the process like preparation and spinning.

Flicking before combing

On some occasions I also use my flicker before combing a top. One example is a Swedish Gotland fleece that had very dense staples that were felted in the cut ends. Opening up the staples before combing made the combing a lot smoother and there was a lot less waste than without the teasing. Similarly, I have teased locks of a Norwegian NKS fleece that had solidified lanolin in the tips (in the post you can watch videos where I show the results with and without teasing before combing). Teasing the staples with a flicker resulted in less work for me and less wool waste.

Using a card as a flicker

Another option is to tease individual staples with your hand cards and get the same results as with a flicker:

Teasing individual staples with a card as a flicker.
  • Place the tip end on the upper edge of a hand card with a hand on top
  • Pull the staple from the carding pad, resisting with the top hand a few times until the tips are teased
  • Flip the staple and repeat for the cut end.

My flicker comes from Louët, but both Ashford and Clemes & Clemes have flickers. Clemes & Clemes has something called a lock pop that seems interesting. You can use a dog or cat brush as a flicker too (or several, they will definitely break). In this video I tease individual staples with a dog comb.

Teasing by hand

If I don’t want to bring too many tools or if I want to stay really close to the wool I tease with my hands. I hold the staple in my hand and tease perpendicularly to the direction of the staple. It obviously takes longer than teasing with a tool, but the benefit is the time you spend with the fiber, getting to know it and how it behaves.

Teasing by hand: Hold the staple lengthwise between your hands and pull almost fiber by fiber perpendicular to the direction of the staple.
Teasing by hand: Hold the staple lengthwise between your hands and pull almost fiber by fiber perpendicular to the direction of the staple.

In my recent spinning project with raw Icelandic wool I combined flicking and hand teasing and spun from what I ended up calling an accordion burrito.

Accidental teasing

A final and sort of accidental way to tease is when you separate undercoat and outercoat with combs. As you doff the outercoat off the comb in a top the undercoat stays in the comb, nicely teased.

After having doffed the long outercoat fibers off the comb I end up with accidentally teased undercoat fibers neatly arranged in the comb.
After having doffed the long outercoat fibers off the comb I end up with accidentally teased undercoat fibers neatly arranged in the comb.

I hope you experiment with teasing if you haven’t already, and enjoy the difference. I will get back to my teasing and a good period drama. To me, teasing will not only result in higher quality rolags, but also a joy in the carding process.

Teased rya locks in the sun (see as in the featured image).
Teased rya locks in the sun (see as in the featured image).

Do you tease your wool in a way I haven’t described here? What are the benefits?

If you have access to any of the breed study webinars I have released you can see how I tease there. And if you are a patron you can have access to all previous breed study webinars in a patron-only video library.

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 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
  • 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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Gunvor’s Sirwal pants

And they are done. My largest spindle spun project so far, the Sirwal snow shoveling pants that used to be common in the Moroccan High Atlas Mountains. I call them Gunvor’s Sirwal pants from the sheep that gave me the wool. Since my 16-year-old has dibs on snow shoveling for pocket money I may use the pants for outdoor yoga and for walking down to the lake for my daily bath.

A while ago I bought Irene Waggener’s beautiful book Keepers of the sheep and reviewed it on the blog. One of the most striking patterns was the Sirwal pants, a pair of black and white striped pants that the shepherds used to knit while herding the sheep.

A patternless pattern

In the book Irene describes her first meeting with the pants in a museum, how she learned to knit them from her host Muah n’Aït Tabatoot’s demonstration. Irene has in turn written down the oral description and demonstration for the book. As all of the projects in the book the pattern is based on working with what you have in the form of wool, yarn, needles and body size rather than a detailed knitting instruction. I really liked the idea and think it would be a good challenge for me.

  • Keepers of the sheep – knitting Morocco's High Atlas and beyond, by Irene Waggener with Muah Ahansali, Hussein Mardi, Muah n'Ait Tabatoot and Noura Eddylymy. Photo published with permission from the author.
    Keepers of the sheep – knitting Morocco’s High Atlas and beyond, by Irene Waggener with Muah Ahansali, Hussein Mardi, Muah n’Ait Tabatoot and Noura Eddylymy. Photo published with permission from the author.
  • Sirwal pants in Keepers of the sheep. Photo published with permission from the author.
    I’m fascinated by the Sirwal pants and their dazzling lightning bolts up the sides of the legs. Photo published with permission from the author.

The challenge of keeping it simple

In the book Irene describes how Muah’s wife Nejma spun and plied the yarn on a floor supported spindle, wound it into a ball and handed it straight over to Muah for knitting. I wanted to make my own pair of Sirwal pants as close to the original as possible. So, a spindle spun yarn. I didn’t have a floor supported spindle of the kind Nejma used, but I do have Navajo style floor supported spindles so I used one of them. I also decided not to soak the yarn and set the twist after plying, to stay as close to the High Atlas way as I could.

To ply the Gunvor Sirwal single I wind it into a ball and ply from the outer and inner end of the center pull ball. I skip the soaking and setting twist and knit as soon as I have wound the plied yarn into a ball (the skeining detour is just to keep track of the meterage).

“So, the yarn is not soaked and the twist has not been set?” you may say. That’s right. “But soaking the yarn will allow it to bloom into its final shape! And setting the twist will even out the twist over the length of the yarn!” you may continue. That is true. This will probably not happen with my pants. Something else probably will, though. I don’t know what, but if and when it does, all is as it should be. Instead of the finished yarn I got the loveliest smell during knitting and the softest hands. That counts for something too.

Gunvor the Gestrike sheep

Gunvor the Gestrike ewe who was my longitudinal fleece study sheep
Gunvor the Gestrike ewe who was my longitudinal fleece study sheep.

I used two fleeces of Gestrike wool, the first and second shearing of the Gestrike ewe Gunvor. She was the subject of my longitudinal study I wrote about in May 2021. She was a beautiful white sheep with large black spots, perfect for the striped Sirwal pants.

Locks from the first (left) and second (right) shearing of Gunvor the Gestrike sheep. Long and strong outercoat fibers, soft and airy undercoat fibers and some kemp.

Gestrike wool has both long and strong outercoat fibers, soft and airy undercoat and some kemp. This results in a strong and warm yarn, perfect for my Sirwal pants.

Gunvor’s first (left) and second (right) fleeces. Note the difference in colour and the different white to black ratio.

A life through stripes

The fleece of Gestrike sheep can lighten with age and Gunvor’s fleece turned out to have that particular characteristic. I took advantage of this feature and used the blackest black from the first shearing at the bottom of the legs and continuted with the lighter shades as I worked my way up the legs. I like how you can see Gunvor’s life through the stripes.

The yarn from the first fleece is placed from the ankles to the thighs and the second from the thighs up. Gunvor’s black spots had lightened at the time of the second shearing. This is not my usual outdoor yoga spot, but it was the only sunny spot around at the time. Photo by Dan Waltin

The quality of the wool was different between the shearings too. The first shearing was shinier and a bit finer while the second shearing was a bit shorter and airier. I’m not sure it’s visible in the pants, though. The second shearing was a lot higher in lanolin. As I calculated the yield from the two fleeces I was amazed by the difference. From the raw fleece I got a yarn yield of 59 per cent from the first shearing and 38 per cent from the second. The amount of lanolin should be an important clue to this difference. Perhaps the second shearing also contained more short fibers and/or kemp than the second, that stayed in the combs when I teased the wool.

You can read more about shearing and lanolin content through the seasons in the post Shearing Day.

Bulky

Another challenge was the yarn. The tradition calls for a super bulky yarn, which is far from my light fingering weight default thickness. But a challenge is a challenge and I took it by the horns. I managed to spin the bulkiest singles I have ever spun. Add plying to that and I got myself a super bulky woolen spun yarn from hand carded rolags.

Lovely longdraws on my floor spindle.

At first I tried to card the wool without teasing the wool first, again in an effort to stay as close to the High Atlas way as possible. But the kemp in the wool made the yarn very scratchy. By teasing the wool with combs I got rid of a lot of the kemp and I decided to keep the teasing.

Gunvor Sirwal yarn. 6 wraps per inch, a super bulky yarn. Teased with combs, hand carded into rolags. Woolen spun on a Navajo style floor supported spindle. Plied both on a spinning wheel and on a floor spindle.

When the pants were finished I had used 26 balls of yarn. 1200 grams, 717 meters from the two fleeces, between 500 and 700 meters per kilo with an average grist of 590 meters per kilo. You can read more about how I spun this yarn in my blog post bulky.

If you are a patron (or become one) you may get access to a Patreon postcard video I made in November, where I demonstrate how I spin the super bulky yarn.

Knitting

I started knitting as soon as I had the first ball of handspun yarn in my hand. This is how I continued with the whole project – spin a ball and knit it. A yarn of this weight doesn’t last very long, though. At the bottom of the legs one skein lasted about one stripe and at the hips around eight rounds.

Spin a ball, knit a stripe, hoping the two fleeces would be enough for the whole project.

Knitting the Gunvor Sirwal pants was quite strenuous. The bulky yarn and the large needles (5.5 mm) require some work. Add to that the tight twist and the tight gauge and, as I joined the legs in the crotch, quite some weight in my lap to manage. The finished pants weigh around one kilo.

One kilo of pants takes a lo-ho-hot of time to dry. 8-ply rope for the shoulder straps.

Despite the heavy knitting it was lovely to work with the yarn. I love the roundedness of the yarn and the strong character it has. It takes its place in the world and doesn’t apologize for its existence. I got all giggly by the sheepy smell from the unwashedness of the pants in progress. As I knit I experienced Gunvor’s life, from the blackest of the black lamb locks at the shins to the more mature depth in the lead grey in hip height.

Outdoor yoga and cold baths

If you have been following me for a while you may know that I take baths in the lake every day and that I sometimes practice yoga outdoors. Gunvor’s Sirwal pants are perfect for both outdoor yoga and walking down to the lake on the coldest days.

A walk to the bath

Gunvor’s Sirwal pants are warm, reasonably windproof, and easy to put on after a cold bath, which is important since my fingers are stiff from the cold and I need to get warm fast. Yesterday afternoon I went down to the lake with an axe and cleaned up the edges of the hole in the ice. We’re five ladies in the cold bath group and they have all been cheering me on during the making of the pants.

  • A lovely morning bath!
Warm, sturdy, windproof and easy to get in and out of. Gunvor’s Sirwal pants are perfect for cold baths. Photos by Isak Waltin (left and middle) and Pernilla Pernsjö (right).

An outdoor yoga studio

Practicing yoga outdoors is not a problem as long as you have clothing that suits the weather. Down to -2°C is ok with one or two layers of wool tights or sweat pants. I can even practice with bare feet on my cork mat at this temperature. With lower temperatures staying warm easily gets too chunky which makes it difficult to do the postures comfortably.

My terrace yoga studio with extra air conditioning.

Gunvor’s Sirwal pants are perfect, though, even for temperatures below -2°C. I took the pictures above at -6°C and it wasn’t too cold. With the suspenders they stay up without getting too tight around the waist.

I practice yoga asana every day, and sometimes outdoors on our terrace. I just love having all the fresh air to myself. As I usually do my outdoor yoga at around 8 p.m. it’s dark, as dark it gets in a city. I get to look up at the sky and the waving pine branches above. It gives the practice an extra dimension of space that I don’t want to be without.

Gunvor’s Sirwal superhero pants, ready for your next wooly adventure.

Some people say the pants look a bit like Obelix’s blue and white striped pants, some say they look like Findus the cat’s green striped suspender pants. They remind me of swimsuits from over a century ago, which is quite suitable since I wear them in a bathing context. But most of all they make me think of superhero pants with their bold stripes and dazzling lightning bolts up the sides. Don’t we all wish to be just a little superhero-y every now and then?

Thank you Irene for making the pattern accessible and Muah for teaching Irene. Thank you Gunvor for the loveliest wool. I have learned a lot from this project.

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 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
  • 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

2021 wrapped up

Another year has passed, filled with spinning memories, like sweets in a bowl. Today I share my favourite wool moments from this year. This is 2021 wrapped up.

As I have looked through my posts in preparation for this wrapping up of the year I have tried to cluster the posts. I have found a few different perspectives that I can sort the posts into. So if you are in a certain mood you can skip to that particular area below.

Meditate

If you are in an artistic mood perhaps you are more inclined to read posts that are written in a more reflective and poetic style.

First comes a carefully worded ode to a small ziplock bag of 55 grams of wool. Actually an exercise from Ursula K Le Guin’s brilliant book on writing, Steering the craft. Do read the piece aloud to discover the rhythm in some of the passages.

  • Little ball of yarn
  • The comfort of sleeping under a dear blanket in the cold winter.
    The comfort of sleeping under a dear blanket in the cold winter.
  • 55 grams of dalapäls wool in a birch root basket from the end of the 19th century.
    55 grams of dalapäls wool in a birch root basket from the end of the 19th century.

In Dear Blanket I address one of the handspun knitted items that I use the most, a Shetland hap Dan and I snuggle under in front of snacks and Netflix every evening. In the same spirit I reflect on a Little ball of yarn.

I also created a more hands-on meditation in the video I call A spinning meditation, recorded in the northernmost part of Swedish Lappland, in the Swedish part of Sápmi. I invite you to spin along with me and feel your way through the spinning.

Reflect

Perhaps you are feeling more like reflecting over wool, spinning and the process you might be leaning more towards in-depth reflections. Here are some suggestions:

In The wool is my teacher I look at the wool in my hands as my most important teacher. If I listen close enough the wool will tell me what it’s all about. When the wool go through my hands time and again in the process from fleece to textile they gather knowledge. In The memory in the hands I reflect over this. And if I for some reason don’t listen to the wool or my experience I will make mistakes. I will also learn from them. In Embrace your mistakes I share some of the mistakes I have embraced over the years.

  • Spinning on a spindle gives me time to understand what is happening.
    I choose simple spinning tools and invest in my quality bank.
  • The comfort of nalbinding.
    The comfort of nalbinding.
  • Embrace your mistakes

Through all that happens in the outer and inner world, wool is always there, anchoring me in the moment, opening the door to creativity. I remind myself of this in The comfort of wool. I think this is true for many spinners. In Course exchange I write about teaching new spinners and wishing they get as much out of wool and spinning

Explore

Sometimes I just want to explore a new fleece or a technique, with curiosity and an open mind. Judging from the posts in this section I have done that a lot this year. Try these:

In A coloured fleece I dive deep into the different shades of brown in a variegated brown Värmland fleece. I spin a super bulky Gestrike yarn on a floor supported spindle in Bulky. In Changing hands I talk about why I always teach my spindle spinning students to learn how to spin with both hands as spindle hands.

  • The Gestrike sheep Gunvor's lamb's fleece is slowly turning into chunky skeins of super bulky yarn.
    The Gestrike sheep Gunvor’s lamb’s fleece is slowly turning into chunky skeins of super bulky yarn.
  • Gestrike wool
  • Åsen wool

A couple of years ago I started a breed study series of the wool of Swedish sheep breeds from a spinner’s perspective. Most of these breed studies have been both a blog post and a live webinar. This year I had time for two breed studies – Gestrike wool and Åsen wool. If you registered for the webinars back then you still have access to the replays. During the year I have also had time to explore fleeces from these breeds further, in Nalbinding Åsen mittens and a Gestrike wool Longitudinal study.

Finally, in Break the rules I challenge the rules I have learned about spinning and do whatever I want. And it works!

Experiment

Sometimes I throw myself out into the wild and experiment with something that has proven to be a challenge or a technique that I don’t usually work with. I experiment with different solutions and learn a lot from the experiment. Perhaps you will be inspired to experiment too. Here are some of my recent concoctions:

Pick a fleece full of Vegetable matter and experiment with different ways to remove as much of the vegetable matter as possible. Imagine that same fleece, a rough fleece with kemp. Imagine smooth recycled sari silk. Put them together and read about it in Opposites attract.

  • Opposites attract
  • In the grease
  • Two skeins, one spun clockwise with my right hand as spindle hand, one spun counter-clockwise with my left hand as spindle hand. By changing hands I have learned about what the hands do and what they know.
    Fulling singles

I spin a newly shorn Icelandic lamb’s fleece from Iceland In the grease and find joy in the joy that the raw feeling and smell of fresh lanolin gives me. In Fulling singles I am determined to knit with singles yarns and full them to make sure the fabric doesn’t twist and turn.

Experience

In this last section I have gathered posts that have required or given me experience. Perhaps you find inspiration by reading these:

On a lovely Shearing day in October I got to be part of the helper team when Claudia’s Gestrike sheep were shorn by a professional shearer. And I got to bring the fleece of Elsa home on the bus. In Fleece happens I describe my process from when a fleece happens to come to me (like Elsa’s) to when I store it, via note taking, sorting, washing, drying, picking and more. A way to categorize wool in Sweden is by wool type. I walk you through the different wool (or staple) types and how they work. Wool combs describes what properties I think are important when I look at wool combs.

  • The sheep are in the pen, reluctantly ready for shearing day.
    The sheep are in the pen, reluctantly ready for shearing day.
  • Knit (spin) Sweden is in your online bookstore now!
    Knit (spin) Sweden!
  • Påsöm embroidered yoga mat

Påsöm embroidery is not about spinning at all, but still textile techniques. This embroidery technique and pattern is unique to the small village of Dala-Floda in County Dalarna in Sweden. Mending apparatus also has nothing to do with spinning, but is important for if and when your garments tear.

Books! Finally Sara Wolf’s book was released and I am a co-author. Read about Knit (spin) Sweden! and enjoy. The book is sold out and it will hopefully be reprinted. In a Book review I talk about Irene Waggener’s book Keepers of the sheep. Do read it!

Finally, in A pattern process I walk you through the agony and hair tearing as I go through the process of designing and construct a knitting pattern for publishing. You will see the root of this agony soon!

Do you have a favourite?

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 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 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
  • 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

Opposites attract

It happened again. A baby idea came and made up its mind not to leave me alone until I had listened to it. The baby idea told me to combine rustic gute fleece with recycled sari silk with the motivation that opposites attract. I listened and I’m glad I did.

A while ago I bought a gute fleece. Gute sheep have a very rustic wool that often has a coarse appearance. You can read more about gute wool here. This one was quite unusual, though, with its very soft undercoat and the outercoat playing only a minor part. Still, as with gute in general, the fleece has kemp.

Kemp

Kemp is fibers that have a dominant core with air-filled cells that make the fibers brittle. They are coarse and don’t conform themself with the rest of the fibers, instead they point quirkily in all directions. The upside with kemp, though, is that they fall out of the wool eventually and leave air pockets. And in yarn, air means warmth.

A lovely and in my experience quite rare gute fleece with lots of very fine undercoat, a few strands of outercoat and some kemp. The kemp keeps the staples open and light.

A fulling project

Kemp also gives a rustic look to a fabric. I like a fulled fabric with quirky kemp in it. My original plan for this fleece was to spin a 2-ply yarn to weave and full in a fulling mill. The combination of lots of undercoat with quite small amount of outercoat and kemp makes this a perfect candidate. The undercoat has excellent felting properties, the outercoat binds the fibers together and makes the fabric stronger and the kemp adds an interesting design element while at the same time bringing warmth to the fabric as it falls out and leaves air pockets.

Enter Sari silk

And so the baby idea came to me. What would happen if I blended the rustic gute wool with recycled sari silk? Would the very different fibers complement each other or would they just look odd? If so, would that be a bad thing?

I have blended recycled sari silk with wool before, in my sweater designs Margau beta and Selma Margau (available as a pattern in Spin-Off magazine). The fleeces have been finer and the results scrumptious. I decided to give my baby idea the benefit of the doubt and make a test skein and fulled swatches.

Teasing

So, first of all I teased the wool. I chose to tease with my combing station, where I could at the same time blend the sari silk with the wool. I charge the stationary comb with the (picked) gute staples. For the purpose of teasing I don’t care about the direction of the staples. I also add tufts of sari silk. To keep a reasonably even wool to silk ratio I charge every combload with 8 staple length tufts of sari silk.

As I doff the roving off the stationary comb a lot of the sari silk and the kemp stays in the comb. I try to fiddle the silk out.

I do about four passes in the combing station to get an even roving. There is one tricky thing here, though. As I doff the wool off the combs I get the longer lengths first, then shorter and shorter. Since both the sari silk and the kemp is very short, around one inch, a lot of it stays in the stationary comb. I try to fiddle the sari silk out to the best of my ability. I will try flicking the cut ends of the gute staples before teasing next time to get more kemp out.

You can see how I tease wool, blend it with sari silk and card rolags in this video.

Carding

As I card luscious rolags, the sari silk blends beautifully into the gute wool, like sparkling stars on a foggy night. Unexpected but mesmerizing.

The fine recycled sari silk blends beautifully with the rustic gute wool.

This wool is just dreamy to work with. Very light and airy with a lovely meringue-y resistance to it. The rolags shape themselves like they were born to do just that. If I lean in I hear them singing sweet songs of yummy longdraws. My heart joins in in the chorus.

The longdraws from heaven

Yes, these newborn rolag babies need and deserve a wicked longdraw. As it turns out, the rolags work that out too, I just treadle along and listen to the wool. I allow it to decide how thick it wants to be. It settles for a quite fine thickness that after plying and washing blooms out into a sport weight yarn.

Spinning English longdraws with this gute wool is heavenly.

As I look at the newborn yarn I see something unique, a blend that I had never thought of before, but that flirts with me in a new way. I see the differences between the fibers and I tingle at their odd union.

Opposites attract

The kemp and the silk in this blend represent the ends of a number of spectra. While the gute wool is raw (in the sense that it hasn’t been processed) the sari silk has been spun, dyed, woven, ripped and processed again. The colours of the sari silk are vibrant and almost luminescent while the gute wool is softly grey. The kemp doesn’t even take dye. While the sari silk easily blends into the draft the kemp in the gute wool is quirky and goes its own way, often out of the yarn entirely. The kemp leaving air pockets in the yarn, the silk filling them. The silk sari, sheer and draped, the gute wool heavily fulled, dense.

However, as there are numerous ways in which these fibers are different, I can find sweet similarities too. Both sari silk and gute wool have depth in their colours, just on different scales. One on the vibrant side and the other on a subtle grey scale. The fine gute undercoat goes hand in hand with the silk. All the fibers – outercoat, undercoat and silk follow the dance of the twist. Well, not so much the kemp.

Another parameter the sari silk and the kemp have in common is their length. They are both quite short, around an inch long. Due to this similarity in length they stay in the combs when I have pulled the teased fibers out. If I pull out more silk, I get the kemp too. And there they are, side by side, like fiber sisters.

Clown barf?

As I investigate the yarn I wonder if I added too much sari silk. There are quite a lot of colour splashes. Is it too much? I remember a Swedish spinning forum discussion where the word clown barf was mentioned in reference to a very pastelly combed top. Was this approaching a brighter clown barf cousin?

The gute silk yarn is finished. Is there too much sari silk, though?

I wrote down the wool to silk ratio and made a mental note about perhaps reducing the amount of sari silk. First I would see what happened in the weaving and fulling.

Sampling and fulling

So, I brought out my pin loom and started making samples to play with. Usually when I experiment with fulling I make two swatches – one that I leave as it is for reference and one that I full. This time I decided to make two fulling samples with different degrees of fulling. This turned out to be an excellent idea.

Swatches: Natural and two degrees of fulling. The lightly fulled swatch is fulled to 79 % of the natural swatch and the heavier fulled swatch 68 %.

My theory was that since I believed that silk doesn’t felt the splashes of colour would bulk up and make blobs. This is why I was considering using less sari silk. The clown barfiness calmed down in the woven samples and even more in the fulled swatches. In the heavier fulled swatch the sari silk hardly shows at all. Little enough to leave the sari silk out altogether for that degree of fulling. It turns out that silk does felt.

I’m not spinning this project right now since the gute fleece has a place at the back of the fleece queue. A wool board with the most important notes (and the findings in this blog post) will help me remember how I processed and spun the wool when it is this fleece’s turn.

I do love the lightly fulled swatch, the one I decided to make on a whim. It has a lovely movement that its stiffer cousin doesn’t have. The sari silk glows softly in the comfort of the squishy grey. Side by side with the sari silk is the quirky kemp, eager to see the world.

Under the loupe

Astonished by the fulling results I texted the pictures of the fulled samples to my brilliant friend Cecilia. “What do they look like under the loupe?” she asked in reply. That was the best idea I had heard all week. Of course I need to observe some felting action under a loupe!

Three swatches under the loupe: The original woven swatch to the left, lightly fulled in the middle and heavily fulled to the right.

So, after some fiddling I managed to get the three swatches under the loupe and some decent photos. As I look at them I see so many interesting things:

  • Silk fibers are really fine! But the gute undercoat is also very fine in this fleece.
  • I can see the light gute fibers, mostly the finer ones but also some with a wider diameter. This seems to confirm my observation of the staples being build up of mostly undercoat fibers and just a few strands of outercoat fibers and that the latter aren’t that coarse.
  • The quirkiness of the kemp (the dark fibers) really shows in the images.
  • There is a thrilling migration going on in the swatches which becomes very clear under the loupe. While the sari silk is superficial and the kemp in the center of the fabric in the original swatch (left), they seem to have traded places in the heavily fulled swatch (right). In both fulled swatches, but especially the heavily fulled, the kemp is on the surface and the sari silk cosily snug in the center. This is visible in the unmagnified photos too – you can see how the sari silk is more diffuse in the fulled samples and the kemp superficial, ready for take-off.

The migration was very fascinating to me and quite the opposite of what I had anticipated before I made the fulled samples. The clown barfiness faded and the marriage between the rough and fine was a success, especially in the lightly fulled sample. The kemp will probably keep migrating out into the world, way outside of the textile.

J’accuse

At the beginning of this week I didn’t know what to write in today’s blog post. I decided to try my gute silk idea to have something to write about. Hadn’t I done that I would never have analyzed it this thoroughly. J’accuse! I totally blame you, my dear readers, for this blog post and its revelations. Thank you! And thank you Cecilia for reminding me to exercise my loupe.

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 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
  • 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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Spinning championships 2021

It’s that time of the year again – the Swedish spinning championships. If I remember correctly I have participated in the championships since 2015. I don’t want to miss this opportunity to spin from wool and instructions that I haven’t chosen myself and learn from the experience.

Last year I won the gold medal for my embroidery yarn. This year I didn’t get any medals, but I would still like to share my yarns and techniques with you.

Championship format

In the spinning championships all spinners get the same fiber and the same rules. The spinners get around one month to spin their yarn and submit it. A jury confers and the medalists are revealed a few weeks later. Usually the prize ceremony takes place on the fleece and spinning championships in different locations every year, but this year and 2020 they were both digital.

There were two competitions this year: Värmland wool and flax.

Värmland wool

The assignment for the Värmland wool was to spin a yarn for knitting, 2-ply or more. We got raw Värmland lamb’s wool in two shades.

Colour separation

Since we got two different colours of the Värmland fleece I figured they would want me to do something with the colours. But two seemed too few, so I decided to make three shades out of the two colours. Using combs I teased each colour separately. I blended a third batch of half dark and half light wool into a shade between the two browns. After that I hand carded each colour separately into rolags.

I teased the two colours with combs in three piles – dark brown, light brown and one blended 50/50. After that I hand carded each pile into rolags.

As I went through the wool I realized that the two colours had different qualities. The darker brown was silky soft and the lighter a bit coarser. I should have listened to this and blended the colours for an even quality. But I was so hung up on the colours so I kept going with the separation.

The wool was a bit difficult to work with. There were lots of very short sections, and the combination with basically no crimp made the fibers quite slippery and reluctant to conform in the twist. This was especially true for the light brown staples with coarser fibers.

Also I realized that I may have used the wrong hand cards ( 72 tpi) but with the very fine fibers I probably should have chosen my finer cards (108 tpi) for a more even fiber distribution in the rolags.

I divided the colours into two piles for two singles with the same amount of the three shades. Somehow I hoped that I would be able to card and spin consistently enough to make the singles equal in length and sections. It didn’t really work out the way I had planned, but still looked good.

Consecutive spinning

I spin a lot on my floor supported Navajo style spindles. I choose them when I want to spin woolen yarn on the bulkier side, but also for finer yarns. You gotta love those arm’s length longdraws.

With this project I wanted to practice in something of a consecutive spinning. I don’t know if this is the correct term, though (please let me know if you have the correct term for this technique). I’m referring to a technique where you spin one spindleful of yarn into a roving or sliver with a very light twist. Then you slide the cop off the shaft and spin the yarn again. A bit more, but still not finished. You keep going until you are happy, 3–4 times is not unusual.

As I understand it, many Navajo spinners often use this technique when they spin yarn for Navajo rugs. The technique facilitates an even yarn and goes a bit faster than a double drafting technique.

First round

The first round I just drafted the rolags into a very lightly twisted sliver, just enough to keep the wool together.

For this yarn I chose to spin in three rounds. In the first round I just made a long roving with a very light twist, just enough to keep the fiber together. I made sure I was at a point where the fibers could slide past each other without coming apart. This is the point I call the point of twist engagement. This is where I feel the spinning most alive, where I, with just a very light roll with my thumb, can manipulate the twist so that the fibers work with me towards an effortless draft.

Second round

The second round I drafted a bit more and brought some yarniness into the yarn. I left the twist around the point of twist engagement to be able to spin a third round.

The second round I drafted some more and added some more twist, but still close enough the point of twist engagement to bring me the freedom to work more with my yarn in a third round.

Third round

For the third and final round I drafted a little more and added the final twist before I 2-plied the two singles on my spinning wheel.

The third round became my final round, where I drafted a little more and added the final twist. As it turned out, I had added too much twist in the second round, making drafting in this third round somewhat of a challenge. But, that’s what I like about these championships – I learn a lot along the way.

A soaked and finished Värmland 2-ply yarn spun in rounds on a floor supported spindle and 2-plied on a spinning wheel.

Final touch

I have no problem plying on spindles, but I know I can achieve a consistent plying twist on the spinning wheel. Since I didn’t want to jeopardize things I plied the spindle spun singles on my spinning wheel.

I was very happy with having tried new techniques and having learned so much from this project. I wasn’t very happy with the yarn, though. But one nice thing with the Spinning championships is that every contestant gets access to the jury’s assessment and learn what they can develop their skills. I’m looking forward to reading it when it comes.

Flax

For the other competition we got industrially prepared line flax. I bought the same brand of line flax a few years ago and I had worked with it all summer, so I knew its challenges. The assignment was to spin a yarn with two or more plies. The purpose with the yarn was knitting. I was very startled by this since all literature on flax preparation and spinning is aimed at weaving yarns. I literally had no clue to how I could adapt my spinning to a knitting yarn.

As I prepared for this post I realized that I hadn’t taken any photos of the flax preparation steps. Therefore most of the photos are from a different flax spinning project. So the fiber is different but the techniques the same.

Rehackling, brushing and dressing

The flax was very dense. Therefore I rehackled it with two different hackles. I knew from before that this flax had lots of different lengths, so I also knew that a lot of shorter fibers would be removed in the rehackling.

After that I brushed it with my lovely flax brush to bring it some extra shine and to remove the last short bits. I lost almost 50 percent of the weight in these steps, but ended up with the longest fibers in my preparation. And I saved the removed fibers for a later tow yarn.

Since the flax top was quite dense I re-hackled it with two hackles. Just before I dressed the distaff I brushed the flax with my flax brush (images from a different flax project).

Dressing the distaff

I dressed the distaff the only way I know how to – in a fan shape. This takes a lot of time, but I imagine all ways of distaff dressing take time. The fibers need to be well separated and easily catch on to each other in a consistent way. You can see how I create my fan and dress my distaff in this video.

I used the fan technique to arrange the flax before dressing the distaff (image from a different flax project)

Spinning and skeining

I wet spun the yarn (counter-clockwise) to make it strong and shiny. I tried to give it a little less twist than I would for a weaving yarn. This was the only thing I could think of to adapt the yarn for knitting.

I wet spun the flax counter-clockwise on my spinning wheel (image from a different flax project).

I used my niddy-noddy to wind a skein after having plied my yarn. The yarn went through a bowl of water to avoid fraying, and then through a niks. A niks is an Estonian tool for tensioning the yarn when skeining, but without breaking skin. I made mine from a willow stick. You can see a lovely video about the niks here.

  • The skeining tool (niks) in action
  • The 2-plied flax yarn before scouring
I used an Estonian niks to keep the plied yarn under tension without risking having the yarn cut into my skin while winding the skein (skeining image from a different flax project).

Scouring

This summer has been my summer of flax spinning (more on that in an upcoming post). I think I have spun around 500 grams of flax yarn. But I haven’t dared to scour it. To be able to submit my championships yarn I would have to, though.

After a few scourings the yarn was considerably lighter and softer.

I read a couple of flax books, but most of them had scouring methods that involved a whole home chemistry lab or ingredients that aren’t readily available. So I asked around online and finally bought soda ash. It seemed like a chemistry lab on its own, but I managed to use it without any injuries. I boiled the skein in two one hour baths with soda ash and soap and they turned out light and soft.

My finished contribution to the 2021 Swedish spinning championships.

I’m very happy with my flax yarn and especially about all that I have learned from spinning it. I will continue my flax journey next summer. Perhaps I will even dare to spin my homegrown flax too.

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 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.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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Vegetable matter

A while ago I bought a fleece online. It was just one of those spur of the moment purchases, when fleece just happens. It was a beautiful gute fleece with silky soft undercoat, long and fine outercoat and quirky kemp. However, as the fleece landed on my doorstep it turned out to be full of vegetable matter.

I had very mixed feelings about this fleece. On the one hand, an unusually soft gute fleece. On the other hand, all the vegetable matter, all over the fleece. My solution was to fall for the fleece, learn from the vegetable matter and share my thoughts and techniques with you.

A villhöver kind of fleece

Gute wool is typically medium to coarse and can be rough (which is not necessarily bad). The undercoat is usually fine or very fine, but in combination with coarser outercoat and the quirky kemp the feeling on the whole is usually rough.

This fleece on the other hand has the softest undercoat in a very airy distribution. The outercoat fibers are long and fine. The kemp, that helps keeping the fleece open, airy and thereby warm, is present over the whole fleece but is also finer than usual in my experience. This very fine undercoat in combination with kemp is very interesting (and rare) and I wonder what she wants to become. The fleece is quite homogenous (also unusual for a gute fleece) with staples of mainly airy undercoat and few strands of outercoat. I would call this vadmal type staples, also quite rare, especially like this over the whole fleece.

A gute fleece with very fine undercoat fibers, long and fine outercoat and kemp. Quite homogenous with vadmal type staples (triangular shaped with mostly undercoat fibers and a few strands of outercoat fibers) over the major part of the fleece. A rare sight.

The combination of the airy distribution of the undercoat and low amount of outercoat fibers sometimes make the tips hard to find. In parts of the fleece I have to investigate the whole wool mass thoroughly to find the tip ends.

The fleece with all its unusual characteristics presented a severe case of villhöver. This is a fairly new Swedish portmanteau word (like smog, Brexit and Oxbridge) constructed of the stems vill (want) and behöver (need). Something I want so much that I convince myself that I really, really need it. Or, something that I don’t necessarily need but secretly covet. Like, say, a very inviting gute fleece.

Vegetable matter

The fleece presents no poo, very few felted parts and seems to have been professionally shorn – it has very few second cuts. However rare and intriguing this fleece is, it is still full of vegetable matter. Hey, straw, seeds and an occasional piece of moss. Some parts bad, some parts moderate, but still all over the fleece. I do smile at an occasional piece of the environment the sheep has lived in. It gives me a better connection to its daily life. But definitely not in these amounts.

Vegetable matter all over the fleece.

The curiosity of this fleece did however take over and I decided to see this experience as an opportunity to learn and share my insights with you. Also, the openness of the fleece (thank you kemp!) made me believe that the vegetable matter would fall out quite easily after some work and persuasion. A more compact wool like Swedish Gotland wool would probably take a lot more work to clean from vegetable matter.

I did let the seller know about the high amount of vegetable matter. She offered me a refund. I declined, because that was not what I was after, I just wanted her to know that I would have wanted this information in the ad before I bought the fleece. I also wanted her to let the sheep owner know that a crafter doesn’t want vegetable matter in the fleece and why. Rather than getting a refund for my purchase I want the sheep owner to keep providing this quality of fleece but with better knowledge about how to avoid vegetable matter.

Processing

I realized that I could remove a lot of the vegetable matter through several steps of the processing – washing, drying, shaking, picking and one or more of willowing, teasing and carding. Even spinning can spurt out small seeds. The question was if I could remove enough of the vegetable matter, how much more time it would take and how it would interfere with my flow. Most of the steps I present below for removing vegetable matter are steps I take through all my fleeces anyway before I spin them. I just need to dedicate more time and focus in each step.

Sorting

The first thing to do is to go through the fleece before washing. In this stage I can remove visible vegetable matter, felted parts, poo and second cuts. With this fleece I didn’t do any of this, since I poured the fleece right out of the package into the wash tub.

Washing and drying

It was when I pressed the bundle of fleece into my wash tub that I realized it was full of vegetable matter. As I soaked and changed waters I removed what I could see and fiddle out of the wet mass. I dried the fleece on a compost grid on top of egg cartons. As the fleece dried some smaller pieces fell down to the floor underneath the grid.

Letting the fleece dry on a compost grid on top of egg cartons allows it to dry faster and let go of shallow pieces of vegetable matter.
Letting the fleece dry on a compost grid on top of egg cartons allows it to dry faster and let go of shallow pieces of vegetable matter.

Shaking

When a fleece dries I shake it and move it around to allow air in. It also lets vegetable matter fall out of it. As I have gone through the other steps of the processing I have also shaken the fleece in smaller portions to allow it to let go of bits and pieces.

Willowing

I realize that willowing would be a perfect method to remove vegetable matter from a fleece like this. Willowing means whipping the fleece with flexible sticks (willow or hazel for example). It will open up the locks and allow vegetable matter to fall out. Since it is November and not very willowing friendly temperatures outdoors I haven’t done that. Yet, I might do it in the spring, though. You can read more about willowing and watch one of my most popular videos here.

Josefin Waltin sitting with a pile of wool. Locks are flying in the air around her.
Willowing is an efficient way to open up the locks and remove vegetable matter.

Picking

Picking a fleece is a great way to get a first feeling of what the fleece is like and how it behaves. You see how the staples are built up, how the fibers relate to one another and the condition of the fleece. I simply work staple by staple through the whole fleece, picking them by the tip end one by one from the mass of staples. In this process the staples open up and allow for vegetable matter to fall out.

Picking a fleece is a lovely way to get to know a fleece while at the same time letting air in and vegetable matter out.

I used to pick the fleece (usually before washing), but somewhere along the way I have omitted this step of the process. On my latest fleece though, I did pick the fleece to sort it into different staple types and I realized the potential of this step, both to learn more about the fleece and to enjoy it more. Sitting on the floor and methodically and mindfully picking one staple at a time is time well spent with your fleece. I’m definitely picking up picking again!

Teasing

I always tease my wool one way or another before carding it. Carding for me is to arrange the fibers in a certain way. To do this efficiently and gently the staples need to be opened up before I place them on the cards.

I tease by hand if I don’t have any teasing tools available or if I want to stay really close to the wool and get to know it better.

  • Pulling the teased wool straight out of the stationary comb, perpendicular to the tines.
I tease larger bundles of wool with combs before carding.

For efficient teasing before carding I use combs. I can load quite large amounts of staples on the combs, especially if I use my larger combs with a combing station. Here is a post and a video where I show you how I tease wool with combs before carding.

I tease one staple at a time with a flicker before carding.

I also use a flicker to tease. A flicker is a smaller card, sometimes used to clean drum carders. I open up staple by staple, one end at a time. Sometimes I use the flicker for very fine fleeces where there is a risk of breaking the tip ends. I prefer the tips breaking (and staying) in the flicker rather than having them turn into nepps in the carding. I have also found the flicker to be a good choice if I want to remove some of the kemp at the cut end.

A lot of the vegetable matter stays in the flicker when I tease.

With the gute fleece I tried teasing with both the flicker and the combs. They both do a good job of removing both vegetable matter and kemp. Since the combs are more efficient I think I will use my maxi combs with a combing station to tease the rest of this fleece.

Teasing gute wool with mini combs.

When I comb wool to make a combed top the teasing is integrated in the combing (unless the staples are really reluctant to opening, then I may tease them with a flicker before combing).

Preparing

Carding the wool allows even more air in between the fibers, and thereby more vegetable matter out. As I inspect the rolags I still see some small pieces of vegetable matter, though.

Carding the airy gute wool is a lovely experience.

As I card this magnificent gute wool I truly enjoy the airy and bouncy response I get from it between the cards. Again, every step of the processing allows me to learn more about how the wool behaves and how it wants to be spun.

Spinning

So, now to the final step and possibly an answer to my questions: Have I managed to remove enough of the vegetable matter to produce a decent yarn? Have I experienced the flow and relaxation through the process like I usually do? In short: Was it worth it?

As I spin the yarn small pieces of vegetable matter spurt out from between the fibers. The wool has opened up enough to just gently hold on to the debris, in contrast to how they were entangled in the raw fleece. Every now and then I need to stop the wheel to manually remove little bits and pieces. I did this test from one of the worst parts of the fleece and hopefully other parts will flow easier.

A small skein of yarn from the gute fleece I have washed, dried, shaken, picked, teased, carded and spun and thereby removed a lot of the vegetable matter.
A small skein of yarn from the gute fleece I have washed, dried, shaken, picked, teased, carded and spun and thereby removed a lot of the vegetable matter.

So far I have only teased, carded and spun a small sample of this fleece to investigate what I’m up against. I still haven’t finished picking the fleece, I’m doing it little by little. When I have finished picking the whole fleece I will store it and put it in the fleece queue. If it is warm outside when it’s the gute fleece’s turn in the queue I might willow it before I start teasing and going through the rest of the process with the whole fleece.

Even though each step has taken a bit longer than usual and even though I may experience interruptions in my spinning flow to remove debris I think it will be worth it. This is such an incredible fleece.

As they say, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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 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.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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Course exchange

In the early summer my friend Cecilia and I took a course in wild basketry. The teacher, Sanna had been following my Instagram for a while and wanted to learn how to spin, so we made a course exchange.

We call the course exchange Pinn mot spinn, translating roughly to Sticks for spinning. Last weekend we had the second part of the course exchange, when I taught her and her sister-in-law Maria how to spin on a suspended spindle.

Beginners

Both Maria and Sanna are complete beginners when it comes to wool handling and spinning. However, both are active in related areas – Maria is deeply down the knitting rabbit hole and Sanna in basket making with different fiber plants.

All of my courses are outlined with the intermediate to advanced spinner in mind. I love getting access to all the spinning and wool knowledge my students bring to the classroom. Their previous knowledge also makes a common vocabulary possible – we can talk about wool in terms that are reasonably defined and that we understand. I can bring up spinning topics that the students relate to. However, on almost every course I teach there has been at least one complete beginner.

The beginner teacher

I find it much more difficult to teach beginners – especially in a mixed class – and I get the jitters when I realize that one of the students is a beginner. We lack that common spinning vocabulary, I find it hard to find methods to teach from a more general perspective – I am a true nerd and want to go deep. So I was a bit nervous about this one-day spinning course with beginners. With Maria and Sanna, however, I learned that we do have a common ground. It just doesn’t necessarily have to be in wool or spinning.

A common ground

Every student has a reason for coming to the course – they don’t just trip over it. Perhaps there is a general interest in crafting, reenactment, mindfulness or downshifting to name a few examples. And it is that reason I need to find out and use as our common ground.

Maria is a dedicated knitter. She knows what she wants in a yarn and a garment and what properties lie in different fibers. I can talk knitting with her – how she can play with wool preparation and spinning techniques to spin a yarn that suits different knitting projects.

Sanna has her passion in basket making and all plants weaveable. She is also a professional gardener and grows 32 kinds of willow. With her I could find a common ground in the crafting bubble and the importance of getting to know the material through all stages from harvest to finished product. She also wants to learn how to spin nettle and flax fiber. I could talk to her about the differences between protein and cellulose fibers as spinning material. A lovely bonus was that she could name the herb in the wool that I referred to as vegetable matter.

An advantage of having beginner students on the other hand is that they have little or no preconceptions about spinning. With open eyes they took in what I taught them and were truly amazed by what they could achieve.

Simple guidelines

One day for beginners is not much. I wanted them to feel that they could achieve something real and to be able to continue reasonably independently on their own once they got home. Therefore I tried to give them a few simple guidelines.

  • Teasing is what opens up the fibers to make them spinnable. This should be done before carding, which to me is about arranging the fibers in a certain distribution and direction.
  • We talked about spinning mechanics and the body being a part of spindle spinning in a way it is not in wheel spinning. This way they got an understanding of how they can control the spinning with their body as opposed to having the tool control them.
  • Opening up the twist was a central concept in making yarn from fiber. In the spectrum between hard twist (where the fibers can’t move) and untwisted fibers (where the fibers come apart once you separate them) there is a point I call the point of twist engagement, where the fibers glide past each other without coming apart. This is where spinning happens!
  • We also talked about spindle ergonomics and spinning with the hand that is best suited for the chosen spinning direction.

These simple but powerful guidelines made it easier for me to derive where any struggling came from and for them to understand how they could make progress.

Wool handling

As in all my courses we began with wool knowledge and wool preparation. It’s difficult to cover this to beginners in just one day while still having time left for the spinning part, but we talked about fiber types and how we can transform the bundled staples into spinnable preparations.

Maria teases her Åsen wool with combs while Sanna proudly inspects the evenness of her finull rolag.

For a knitter who mostly sees wool in commercial yarns a raw fleece can be both thrilling and daunting. For someone who works mainly with cellulose fibers protein fibers can be truly fascinating to handle.

After a short wool intro they started teasing and carding. Observing their progress was a true joy – from the first wobbly strokes with the cards to some really lovely round and even rolags.

Spinning

By parking and drafting they got the chance to control the spindle without feeling rushed by the moving tool. After having started to trust the wool and trust their knowledge they made lovely long draws.

Maria started parking and drafting and realized after a while that she didn't always need to park the spindle. She spun a lovely and even yarn.
Maria started parking and drafting and realized after a while that she didn’t always need to park the spindle. She spun a lovely and even Åsen wool yarn.

Since I had only the two students I could observe their progress and guide them individually on their personal spinning journeys. Learning a craft is both a cognitive and physical activity, governed by every student own learning process. Through this learning a craft becomes very personal. Some students feel bad about not being able to achieve what they hoped to achieve, some don’t think their work is good enough, some have trouble focusing in a learning setting. Being able to give individual feedback and guidance is vital for their experience of the course and confidence in their crafting. It also gives me more time to learn and enjoy how each student learns.

Maria is plying her very first handspun yarn. Note the rolag progression on the floor. Sanna too produced a lovely ball of yarn, however in crappy light, hence the lack of photo evidence.

At the end of the day they both had a tiny ball of their very first handspun yarn. They were both glowing with pride of what they had achieved. So was I.

Thank you Sanna and Maria for allowing me to explore and expand my teaching skills in my part of the course exchange. It was a privilege for me to teach you, especially since I had the luxury of focusing on only two students. I learned a lot! I hope you did too. Use this post to refresh your memories of our spinning day.

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 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.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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The memory in the hands

Spinning on a spindle gives me time to understand what is happening.

Last week I streamed a live breed study webinar on Gestrike wool. One of the participants asked me why I carded by hand instead of using a drum carder. My answer was about the memory in the hands. Today I will elaborate on this topic.

I replied that I want to work with my hands in the fleece. Every time the fibers go through my hands I get to know them. Every time I make a stroke with the cards I feel how the wool resist the cards, I feel how the fibers behave. All the information I get from working with my hands with hand tools is information that helps me when I spin it. So I want to work as much as possible with my hands.

Ancient and modern spinning tools

A spindle is a simple tool, usually consisting of a stick and a weight, sometimes the stick alone. And yet it can do basically the same things as more modern and elaborate tools like the spinning wheel and the e-spinner. Why is that?

Before we elaborate on that we will go back in history to the time before the first mechanized spinning tools when yarn for all cloth was spun with spindles alone. This took time. A lot of time. Yet, spinning was essential to clothe and feed families. When the first mechanized spinning tools like the charkha and later great wheels came they freed a lot of time. Still, for a while in the European medieval times only weft yarn was spun on the great wheel. The warp yarn needed to be strong enough and the wheel wasn’t trusted when it came to quality.

Very different tools can do basically the same thing.

So, back to the question: Why can the spindle and the wheel/e-spinner do the same things while looking so different? Well, as we have established, the Spindle takes a lot of time. The spinner needs to do a lot of things that are built in and sometimes even accelerated in a mechanized or electrified spinning tool. This is where the time factor comes in. The wheel is faster than the spindle in itself. Furthermore the wheel can accomplish things like tension and take-up simultaneously.

Where are the mechanics?

So, while the mechanized spinning tools have, well, mechanics. How come we can get the same result (or even better) with a spindle? The Tasks that the spindle spinner needed to do consecutively were removed and placed in the spinning wheel to speed up the process. To me this means that the mechanics of spindle spinning is in the spinner.

Read that again: The mechanics of spindle spinning is in the spinner.

So, while the mechanized spinning tools save time, they also place the spinning a little further from the spinner through those very mechanics. Consequently, the simpler spinning tools place the mechanics in me. I become part of the spindle. The same goes for a backstrap loom versus a floor loom – the backstrap weaver becomes a part of the loom, controlling warp tension, rhythm and the changing of the sheds.

Photo by Dan Waltin
The backstrap weaver is part of the loom. The spindle spinner is part of the spindle. Photos by Dan Waltin.

The nifty thing about spinners and weavers is that they have memory. In this case – muscle memory. When the mechanics of the spindle or the loom are in me my muscles remember the motions they need to accomplish in order to get an expected outcome – yarn or fabric.

Carding

Placing the question in the webinar in this context, I as a carder will have the carding mechanics in me and I become part of the carding. When I make the strokes with the hand cards I feel the resistance of the fibers between and through the cards in my hands. Through just simple hand tools my hands get an understanding of the length of the fibers, their capacity to hold on to each other, their elasticity, strength and loftiness.

Hand carding wool gives me an opportunity to understand how the fibers behave. Photo by Dan Waltin

Placing the fibers in a drum carder I save a lot of time. But I don’t get the sensory feedback from the fibers. I also don’t get the same chance to tailor the wool preparation to each batch.

Time: Quality and quantity

Generally speaking, the simpler the tools the longer it takes to use them. A mechanized tool does have time on its side – it’s faster. I can get more done in less time. However, slow is a superpower in my book. Slow is what makes it possible for me to see and understand what is happening in the spinning process. In spindle spinning I can notice the details in a way I can’t in wheel spinning.

A few years ago we were on a hiking trip. Dan’s mother was with us and her balance isn’t always reliable due to MS. It was kind of a rocky path and we needed to stop and help her navigate between rocks and roots on the path. The pace was a lot slower than it usually was on that hike. But suddenly we were able to see the details. The cushiony moss on rocks and tree stumps, the intricate patterns of lichens and the beauty of dew drops in the blueberry bushes. It gave the hike a completely new meaning. It took a lot more time, but we gained so much in experience and depth. So much more made sense.

Spinning on a spindle gives me time to understand what is happening.
I choose simple spinning tools and invest in my quality bank. Mittens in handspun Värmland wool.

When I spin on a spindle I give my mind the time to understand what is happening and on a deeper level. Time isn’t wasted but invested in a quality bank. So much more makes sense.

Simple and complex

Simple hand tools give me a direct connection to the fibers. The more complex the tools and the more of the functions that are built in to the tools, the further away from the fibers I get. Consequently, the closer I am to the fiber the better I will get to know and understand them. I get information from the fibers via the tools or directly in my hands.

At the moment I’m spinning raw Icelandic wool straight from the cut end of lightly flicked staples on a suspended spindle. My hands and my mind are there in every step of the process, in a pace that allows me to lean in and listen to the wool.

I’m spinning raw and unprocessed Icelandic wool as simply as I possibly can. My hands are truly in the wool, experiencing every aspect of the fibers, Magpie suspended spindle.

With my hands in the fibers in all the steps of the process I get to know the fibers on all possible levels – as staples, in the processing, in the spinning, plying and as a yarn and textile. With the information in all the steps it will be easier to troubleshoot. My hands come closer to the wool and I can walk myself back through the process and find the missing link. I own the process. I know the wool in my hands better than anyone else.

Thank you Marilyn for your important question!

Resources

Here are a few resources where you can read more about my thoughts on the memory in the hands:

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 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.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.