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Hanna the ranunculus top

I finished a top and just loved knitting it. It’s not one of my usual styles, but I do love it and keep my eyes open for similar models. The yarn comes from Hanna the Gestrike sheep, a gold medalist at the Swedish fleece championships of 2024.

I wrote about the fleece and the yarn a couple of weeks ago. The massive fleece (for a Swedish heritage breed) of 2 kilos had different staple types and I divided it into three categories and spun them into the same yarn thickness. That way I can use all three types in the same project and adapt the placing of the yarn. I’ haven’t finished, though, since my mind really needed to knit the top I had decided on. This week I finished it.

Hanna the Gestrike yarn

The yarn ended up very shiny and fits perfectly with the pattern. The uneven spots give extra sparkle to the structure and the pattern is ideal for handspun yarn due to its versatility.

Blocking my Ranunculus top knit in my handspun Gestrike wool.

It was also very comfortable to knit with. And that’s quite important, isn’t it? My Hanna yarn flows comfortably through the fingers and doesn’t split. And I have lots of yarn left and lots of wool left to spin.

A Ranunculus top

The pattern, the Ranunculus by Midori Hirose, is and oversized crop top with a lacey yoke pattern. It is very intelligently made, with lots of tutorials and options. The sizes are based on the chest circumference of the garment, and by choosing your preferred amount of ease you pick the size that gives that ease on your body. I chose the second size, and it didn’t look very oversized, but when I blocked to the measurements, magic happened.

I am smitten with my Ranunculus top and can’t stop looking at it. The pants are my hand sewn in a vintage Chinese handwoven cotton fabric.

Other options offered in the pattern are neckline width and cuff short rows. I chose the smaller neckline and included the short rows for the cuffs, giving them a better fit. The top is knit top-down and is finished at the bottom with a wide 1×1 twist ribbing. The sleeves are bound off with an I-cord.

More ideas

I’m playing with the idea of dyeing the top. Most of my knits are in natural wool colours, but I do have an indigo fermentation bucket underneath my home office desk and I may play with that. I’ll keep you posted.

The Ranunculus is perfect for a bike commuter – it fits neatly in my pannier and is easy to slip on after having slithered out of all that bike ride lycra.

I’m actually thinking about making a second Ranunculus, in the wider neckline and more positive ease, knit in my handspun linen yarn. Perfect for hot summer days when I want to stay cool and out of the sun. I have actually never knit a pattern twice (apart from perhaps a pair of socks or two), but this sweater is well worth a second knit.

Happy spinning!

P.S. My book Listen to the Wool is available for pre-order now! Read more about it (and see a few of the beautiful photos) here.

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main spinning channel. This is where I write weekly posts, mainly about spinning. Do subscribe!
  • I share essay-style writing in my online publication Of Words and Wool a couple of times a month. Read more about it here.
  • I am writing a book! In November 2025 Listen to the Wool: A Why-to Guide for Joyful Spinning will be available. You can read more about the book here.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons are an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • 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.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
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Hanna the gold medalist

On last year’s Swedish fleece championships I managed to get one of the gold medalist fleeces, from the Gestrike sheep Hanna. She grazes in Claudia’s pastures and I was there at shearing day.

If you are a patron, or want to become one, you can have access to a video postcard where I show you the fleece and what I made of it.

The fleece is shiny and soft and quite variegated. When I picked the fleece I surveilled the staples and divided them into piles of staple length, which quite often also means fineness. I ended up with three piles – 200 grams of fine fibers, 660 grams of medium fibers and 300 grams of stronger fibers.

Raw fleece from Hanna the Gestrike sheep, shorn autumn 2023 and a gold medalist at the 2024 Swedish fleece championships.

A variegated fleece

My plan is to spin the same type of yarn from all three categories – a 2-ply woolen yarn spun from hand carded rolags with English long draw. That way I will have one soft yarn, one medium and one stronger and use all three of them in the same project. I could use the fine yarn at the neck of a sweater where I may be sensitive to itch, the medium for the body and the stronger for elbows and cuffs, that may stand against abrasion better than the medium yarn.

The finished yarn from the medium fine staples of Hanna’s fleece. Picked, teased, hand carded and spun with English long draw into a 2-ply woolen yarn.

Last week I finished the last skein of the medium staples. When all the medium staple wool was spun I had 530 grams and 830 meters. I managed to get the yarn very even in grist across the 13 skeins – ten of them had a grist between 1400 and 1600 meters per kilo and the remaining three not far from that. I am very happy with the result so far.

Three similar yarns from three different staple categories of the same fleece. From the left long and strong, medium and fine fiber staples. I can use these for different parts and for different purposes in the same project.

The tricky part comes next; to spin the other staple categories into similar yarn weight, look and feel. I have not started the fine and the strong categories, but I did do a quick sample collection of the three varieties. I thought I would have to alter the amount of treadles for gathering and adding twist, but all the variants worked with the treadle combination I had used for the medium staples.

Squishy centerpull balls

And oh, I tried a new technique to hand wind my centerpull balls. Usually I wind them around my thumb (like you would with a nostepinne, only without the nostepinne), but a student of mine taught me to make squishy ones, and that requires a nostepinne. When you wind the yarn, you make sure to add a finger or three around the ball, so they are wound into the ball, After a few rounds in the same spot, you slide the fingers out, turn the ball and take a new grip. That way the yarn is loosely wound onto the ball, which makes it airy and less pulling on the yarn.

A sweet and squishy hand wound center pull ball and a wee swatch, what more could you ask for?

The balls are fun to make and I love how smoothly the yarn comes out of the center. They are also pretty, don’t you think?

When projects come running

My plan was to spin all the categories before I started a project, but I willingly admit I utterly failed. My mind needed to knit, and so I cast on for a sweater. I am pretty sure I will have yarn left for another project to use with the other categories.

Midori Hirose’s Ranunculus is a fun and quick knit with lots of opportunities to play and adapt the pattern to your needs.

The sweater I cast on for was Midori Hirose’s Ranunculus, an oversized top with a patterned yoke. The thing with this pattern is that it is designed for a range of yarn weights and has instructions for different amounts of oversizedness (yes, it’s a word). In my book this is perfect for handspun yarn. The instructions are very clear and there are links to a range of techniques that are used in the pattern.

The laced and patterned yoke is very playful – while it seems like just random holes to pick up new stitches from, I realize this pattern was designed by someone extremely skilled in their craft. This sweater is such a joy to knit! I am already planning for another one, in linen for the summer, perhaps with a wider neckline and more width in the torso. It would result in the loveliest drape. I just need to spin the yarn first.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

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

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

Spedetröja/Danish night sweater

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

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

A muddy dye bath

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

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

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

A contemporary Victorian walking skirt

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

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

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

Trousers in Japanese

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

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

You can find me in several social media:

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

How many times have you been asked that question, ”What’s it for?”. To me, it’s for love, for flow, for the connection between hands and mind, for the memory of the process.

A little ball of blue yarn, packed with adventures and so many tales to tell. It could never know what the world had in store for it. I am grateful for its gifts, for its stories and for the memories still vibrating in my hands.

Norwegian rains

It all started with white fleece from a Norwegian sheep. Long staples, showered with the misty mountain rains, lanolin pushed out to the tips. I picked it out among a flock of fleeces on a woolly journey many years ago.

A white fleece with dark and dirty tips.
A skein of white and shiny handspun yarn.
A Norwegian sheep with solidified tips turned into the sweetest yarn.

The tips a while later – solidified and gunky. Fighting me, tangling, not allowing the combs through. I go for the flicker, gently open, break the solid grease and release, fibers fanning out into the air like branches in the autumn winds. Combing has turned into a creamy dream. Gone is the fighting, the struggle against the elements, here are only smooth fibers gliding gently into the dance of the combs. A bird’s nest of gentle shine and soft evenness, like a silken salon for the sweetest baby birds.

Drafting a dream

I spin and dance, hands in the wool, a dialogue back and forth. The fibers whisper to me, guide me through the draft. Hands softly mumbling, guided by the wool, listening to it, hearing its every whisper. Roll the thumb here, allow more fiber in there, stop, breathe and wait for the twist to settle. Let the fibers flow, glide past each other, keeping the rhythm, the smoothness, the ongoing process in my hands, the settling of the fibers into sweet yarn of mine.

Weaving with the trees

I weave a dream with a tree, the both of us tensing the warp, the movement of the up and down, talking to the tree, my partner in warp. Gently pulling away to tense, coming closer, inviting the slack, moving gently with the tree to allow the weft through the shed, the batten to beat, the cloth to take shape, grow and mature. Woven in the sweet shadow below the century-old linden tree, under its sprouting sticky light-green leaves in the pale May sun, brown leaves still covering the ground, the sky blue between diamond holes in the lace canopy.

A woman weaving on a backstrap loom attached to a tree.
A person weaving on a backstrap loom, a band and wooden sticks through it.
A person weaving on a backstrap loom. A 30 centimeter broad weave in blue and natural white wool yarn.
Weaving with the trees in the early days of May.

Stitch by stitch I shape a bag, purposely planned, nothing wasted, nothing overflow. Just a strap and a body of sweet blue. A blue I always long for and against all expectations get just right this time. Kindly framing the natural sheepy white, soft and gently shining. A couple of stitches to assemble it all, roses in the belly, a pocket for heddles and sticks for other weaves, other trees.

A woman with a blue and white woven bag. She is wearing a yoked knitted sweater.
Photo by Dan Waltin
The interior of a woven bag. The bag is lined with a rosy fabric and contains yarn and weaving supplies.
A camera with a woven strap with a blue center with white hearts, framed by black.
Weaving bag and straps for my singing heart.

I can’t leave the yarn, I can’t leave the weave. I need more and I keep weaving. Even slower now, a pick-up pattern, a camera strap for Dan who so generously shoots my crafting, the bag, the sheep and the wool. A camera guard in gratitude for his eye for beauty, light and angle, his art in my craft. White hearts winding down the strap of blue, pitch black rya to frame, thin bands to hold it together.

What’s it for?

My hands are cold on the keyboard, says Dan. I knit him a pair of mitts, tiny blue dots embraced by gentle grey. The blue ball is back, warming, embracing his hands. What are they for? they ask. Well for dancing across the keyboard as he types his brackets, darts and commands to turn the world around underneath his fingers.

A pair of mittened hands on a keyboard in the grass.
Close-up of a person braiding a band. The far end is tied around the toe.
Mittens for Dan and band for joy.

Little band, little, band, I need to braid you. Darts and arrows, blue on white, white on blue, winding down the band. What is it for? they ask. Well the band is only the reminder of the process that goes through my mind as I braid, over two under one, left to right, right to left, keep moving the strands across until the band reveals its pattern, keep moving the process in my mind.

Hands warmed by tea

Just a couple of balls left now, still usable though. A white for a seaweed hat, a blue for another, a bubbly sideways stripe.

A woman wearing a slouchy hat with a bauble-like pattern in browns and blues.
A woman wearing a stranded colourwork hat with white algae growing up from a folded brim. The background colour begins in petrol at the brim and change to turquoise and dusty blue towards the crown.
Blue and white sideway stripes and white algae in stash busting hats.

Smaller and smaller, a short strand for reading the sweetest words, a kind reminder of where I finished the last sentence, hidden between the pages, keeping the words in order when I am not there to inhale their beauty. What’s it for? they ask. Well, for words to enter my heart and soul, for inspiration to flow and for hands to be warmed by tea.

An open book with a thumb book holder with a blue yarn through it.
A gentle strand of yarn serves as a book mark to keep the words neatly in order.

A ball of yarn is all that is left, a little blue ball, reminding me of its adventures through the Norwegian mountains, the rains, the flooded ballerina skirt wool before it landed in the twist into the yarn into the weave of my heart. What is it for? they ask. Well for love, for beauty and for the vibrating memory of a process, of creating the sweetest little blue ball of yarn.

Close-up of a ball of blue yarn.
The little blue ball of yarn reminds me of the process in my hands and my heart.

Inspiration

My friend Anna sent me this essay by Barbara Kingsolver that may be some of the most beautiful words I have read. It inspired this post, together with a skin thinning meditation by Beth Kempton.

Projects mentioned:

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

Looking back at 2023

This time of year I like to take a look back at the blog posts (52 as it turns out) I have published and see where they have taken me. Come and join me, there is lots to read and dive in to.

Destashing

This blogging year has been a lot about destashing fleeces and handspun yarn. A full fleece queue where the fleeces are older than one year can be quite stressful, so I wrote about the ladies in waiting and what I planned to do with them. I also reflected over all the projects I had going. I do like to have parallel projects, but there were a bit too many at the time and I managed to destash some of them and also some of my knitting project.

A woman is sitting cross-legged outdoors. She is wearing a cropped handknit sweater in blue, grey and white.
Seven knit hats in a ros.
A woman wearing a handknit linen sweater in a sea green colour.
A yoga top and seven hats all from destashed and/or ripped handspun yarns. The linen top to the right is made from commercial yarn I ripped from a top I knit back in 2014.

During the autumn I have knit several things with either destashed or ripped yarns:

  • the Seguin top from commercial linen yarn
  • a yoga top from stashed handspun Icelandic yarn
  • A shawl from stashed and ripped handspun yarn
  • Seven hats from stashed and ripped handspun yarns.
A woman looking at the view over a lake. She is wearing a grey garter stitch shawl with blue short-row lace sections.
The Waiting for rain shawl swallowed a lot of my handspun stash.

My handspun stash is considerably smaller and even I feel lighter. I also have new ideas about how to use the remaining skeins. During the autumn I have bought lots of new fleeces, though, contrary to my plan of fleece moderacy. I do blame the book, though, I want to be able to show as many Swedish breeds as possible in it.

The vest that went viral

In April something unlikely happened. I had woven a twill vest in my local Vävstuga (weaving room). After having blogged about the finished vest I published a reel of me showing it. After a couple of weeks the reel went viral, and after a month it has over 3 million views. I went from 4500 followers to 32000.

A woman is wearing a blanket-like draperi shawl vest in green with a big collar. She is stand-ins in the snow.
A woman is putting on a blanket-like draperi shawl vest in green. She is stand-ins in the snow.
A woman is wearing a blanket-like draperi shawl vest in green with a big collar. She is stand-ins in the snow, looking up at the sky.
The vest that went viral.

It’s totally insane and I was overwhelmed during the craziest weeks. I feel I haven’t earned a following of that size, but most of them have stayed and they are all welcome to the community.

Birthday raffle

Later in April I turned 50. I decided to host a birthday raffle and donate the earnings to the Centro de Textiles Tradicionales del Cusco (CTTC). I made an embroidered spindle case for the raffle and 79 people raised 395 USD! I still don’t know if the winner ever got the prize, though, I haven’t heard from her.

A cylindrical case in grey wool. The case is embroidered with bold flowers in rich colours.
A cylindrical case in grey wool. The case is embroidered with bold flowers in rich colours.
A cylindrical case in grey wool. The case is embroidered with bold flowers in rich colours.
The birthday raffle spindle case.

The knit sleeve jacket

One of my most massive projects ever is the knit sleeve jacket. I started spinning the yarn for it in 2019 and I finished it in June this year.

A woman is wearing a jacket with a white broadcloth bodice and knit skeves with embroidered flowers in rich colours.
The knit sleeve jacket is finally finished!

The jacket features five different techniques:

  • the yarn that I spun on a supported spindle from teased locks of dalapäls wooland Z-plied
  • the sleeves that I two-end knit between 2019 and early 2023
  • the bodice that I hand-sew from commercial high quality broadcloth
  • a band I wove on a backstrap loom
  • Påsöm embroidery on the sleeves.
A woman is wearing a jacket with a white broadcloth bodice and knit skeves with embroidered flowers in rich colours. She is buttoning clasps in the front.
A woman is wearing a jacket with a white broadcloth bodice and knit skeves with embroidered flowers in rich colours. She is spinning on a suspended spindle.
My knit sleeve jacket goes very well with the midsummer light, a tie-on pocket and a suspended spindle.

I have learned so much in this project, not the least from ripping the sleeves a couple of times and having to spin more yarn with a new fleece when I ran out of the first batch.

Blue

A lot of my time this summer has beed dedicated to my indigo experiments. I grew two kinds of woad and two kinds of Japanese indigo and dove deep into their care and into fresh leaf dyeing and pigment extraction.

A woman wearing a blouse with leaf prints on the yoke and blue flowy cuffs.
A row of small skeins of yarn in shades of blue.
A small mason jar with a liquid in intense blue.
Under the theme of blue I have done some fresh leaf pounding and ice bath dyeing (left) and extracted indigo powder (right). I got a wide spectrum of colours from my fresh leaf experiments (center).

I have written a number of posts about my blue dreams, the fox that dug up the woad patch, my first ever fresh leaf dyeing experiments, the story of Ms Klein (who woke up one morning thrown over a hedgerow), dyeing with the few plants I had left of my Chinese woad, making an ice bath, showcasing all my fresh leaf dyed handspun silk samples and extracting indigo pigment.

Words flowing

Sometimes my words flow freely and wildly and I end up with a piece written in more of a poetic style. I put Taiko drum music in my ears and let the words lead the way. I love writing this way I learn a lot from it.

A band weaving setup on the train. A pile of books in the background.
A piece of seaweed floating in shallow water.
A woman cuddling a sheep.
I wrote some poetic style posts about a woven band, the sea and the breath of wool.

Here are some blog posts written in this spirit:

  • In One more beat I weave on the train and submerge myself in the beat of the tracks, the taiko drums and on the weave against the fell.
  • If wool could talk is an experiment where I allow a few fleeces to introduce themselves.
  • To the sea is a piece totally unrelated to wool, but in the same spirit.
  • A breath of wool came to me after I had handled fleece that had been freshly shorn off sheep that I had cuddled just before the shearing.
  • Stitch by stitch and Stitches and garden beds are sweet reflections from the embroidery needle.
  • In Pick me three fleeces pin me down onto the couch and hijack my blog.
  • In The journey of words and wool I reflect over the process of writing and spinning, that occur before the words land on the page and the fibers adjust in the twist.

Do you have a favourite?

Summer flax

In the summer I like to spin flax in the shadow on our balcony. And, of course, tend to my tiny flax patches in the community garden allotment. I did start in the spring, though, by hackling last year’s harvest. In the summer I finally finished the linen shawl I started last summer. I spun the yarn from 120 year old Austrian flax from the Berta’s flax project.

A woman is standing with her back to the camera on a country road, holding up a lace shawl. The shadow from the woman and the shawl is cast on the road.
A woman is standing in front of a cow pasture. She is wearing a lace linen shawl.
A woman is standing on a country road, holding up a lace shawl.
The linen shawl is finally finished.

I have grown flax in a tiny patch since 2014, but never spun it. This summer I spun all the harvests, some so small that I bundled them together, some large enough for a skein of their own.

Usually I dew ret my harvest in the autumn. This year, though, I tried water retting it in a kiddy pool. And, since I managed to underret it again, I reflected over flax yield.

Meeting fibery friends

This year I have met fibery friends from near and far and cherished every moment. In August I first met Christiane Seufferlein, initiator of the Berta’s flax project. She was on a European tour and we spent a whole day together in the former Viking city of Birka. Back in April Christiane and I also did a live webinar together.

Two women smiling. They are both wearing knitted lace shawls.
Two women smiling. They are holding each other's hands in the air and wearing black and white knitted pants.
Josh
Meeting Christiane (left) and Irene (right, photo by Josh Waggener) were such special moments.

Just a couple of weeks later I met Irene Waggener, author, knitter and independent researcher. She lives in Yerevan, Armenia at the moment, but she was taking a course in Copenhagen and I decided to take the train down to Malmö and meet her there. We spent a day in the park and the hours flew by. I was so glad I had decided to make the trip and that she wanted to meet me. I hope we can meet again soon.

A woman squatting in a pasture with a flock of black and grey sheep.
A woman squatting in a pasture with a flock of black and grey sheep.
A woman squatting in a pasture, holding out her hand to a black and grey sheep.
Boel (to the left on the left photo, by Kristin Jelsa) and me, Kristin and Anna with Boel’s parents’ flock of Gotland sheep.

In September it was time for the annual wool journey with my wool traveling club. This time we met at Boel’s house and spent the days weaving, knitting and chatting.

Meetings like these mean so much. Spending time with a fiber friend, merging my wool experience with theirs is such a gift. I hope to be able to do more of this in 2024.

Creating yarn

Miscellaneous spinning posts were a presentation of my spinning wheels, a guide to spinning on the road, a presentation of my year in wool. I also presented a pair of new Moroccan High Atlas socks and my collection of antique hand cards.

A spinning wheel and a red chair with a sheepskin on it are standing in a wintery landscape.
A person carding wool with antique cards.
A woman swinging her legs at a dock ladder. She is wearing hand knit socks. There are autumn leaves on the dock.
Spinning wheels, antique cards and new socks are themes for blog posts during the year.

Thank you sweet readers for staying with me. I learn so much from your questions and I cherish your comments. Thank you for making me a better spinner and writer.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Daily hat

Hats are the ultimate knitting projects. They are small enough to fit in a pocket, they are usually knit in the round, they don’t have to be matched with a twin, you can experiment with difficult techniques without giving up and you can finish them within a week. Join me in my daily hat parade.

It all started with the Waiting for rain shawl I knit in November, from stashed and ripped handspun yarns. When I had finished it there was still yarn left, so I knit a hat. And another. And another. Suddenly I stand here with seven hats that I have knit during November and December from my stashed handspun yarns. That’s a daily hat for every day of the week.

Seven knit hats in a circle.
A daily hat for the whole week, all from my handspun stashed yarns.

Stranded knitting and Algae

The first hat I fell for was Algae by Marie Amelie designs. It’s a stranded colourwork hat with an algae pattern, which suits my daily dip in the lake perfectly. The folded brim together with the stranded colourwork keeps my head toasty and warm on even the coldest of days.

The wrong side of a stranded colourwork hat in petrol, turquoise and white. An elephant patterned purse and a needle case in the same colour scale beside it.
A woman wearing a stranded colourwork hat with white algae growing up from a folded brim. The background colour begins in petrol at the brim and change to turquoise and dusty blue towards the crown.
TheAlgae hat has a stranded colourwork algae pattern and is nice and warm.

The original pattern is knit in a white main colour and yellow background colour. I chose three different background colors that on a sunny day resemble the colour of the water. I used all three of them in the Waiting for rain shawl.

A woman hanging in the lake from a buoy pole. She is wearing a stranded colourwork hat with white algae and a petrol, turquoise and dusty blue background. She is also wearing a bikini and gloves. There is snow on the buoy pole.
The algae hat fits my daily dips perfectly in both design and warmth.

The Algae hat has quickly become my favourite hat for this time of year. The folded brim is soft and gentle and I love the colour scheme.

Mindless ribbing hipster hat

I have knit a couple of hats for my husband, but they are all starting to fall apart. I wanted to knit him a new one, a fairly plain hat. The HipsterHat by PetiteKnit was my choice, together with a soft 2-ply yarn I spun ages ago from an Shetland Eskit fleece.

A woman wearning a dark grey ribbed hat with a folded brim.
A woman in the water holding on to a ladder. She is wearing a bikini, gloves and a dark grey ribbed hat with a folded brim. There is snow on the ladder.
The HipsterHat is warm and cozy and can be worn unfolded or with a single and double fold.

This was a mindless knit, just the 2×2 ribbing all the way plus some sweet decreases towards the crown. I love how the hat can be worn in different ways – straight, folded or double folded.

Arkanoid garter building blocks

I have always been curious about Woolly Wormhead’s hat patterns, so I searched among her hat designs. I wanted to knit something for my son who is an architect student. Woolly Wormhead calls herself a hat architect and the Arkanoid pattern resembles a brick Wall, so the match was perfect.

A woman wearing a turquoise semi-slouchy hat with a brick-like pattern.
A knitting project on a wooden floor. The knitting has a brick-like structure. A ball of yarn in the background.
Just the ringht amoung of slouch in the Arkanoid hat.

The yarn I used was a 2-ply finull yarn I spun a couple of years ago and dyed in an ice bath with fresh indigo leaves.

Greystone cables

My daughter has sensitive skin, so I used the softest handspun I could find for her, Swedish Jämtland wool. I had ripped this yarn from an older project. Since the yarn was so fine I held it double throughout the knitting.

A woman is bathing in a hole in a frozen lake. She is wearing socks, mittens, bikini and a white cabled hat.
A cabled knitting project on a wooden floor. A ball of white yarn in the background.
I used the softest yarn I could find for a cabled hat in natural white for my daughter who has sensitive skin.

I chose the Greystone hat pattern by Melissa Thomson (Sweet fiber), a fairly simple cable pattern. My daughter is quite picky, but I hope a subtle cabled natural white hat works for her.

Jessica Jones and linen stitch

Okay, so if a hat is called If Jessica Jones had a hat (by SMINÉ), don’t you just have to knit it? I know I do.

A woman wearing a petrol coloured hat with an envelope crown.
Both the linen stitch and the envelope crown were new to me. While I didn’t enjoy the slowness of the knitting, I love how my If Jessica Jones had a hat hat turned out.

The hat is knit in linen stitch, which gives the loveliest weave-like structure. The pattern is knit one, slip one with the yarn in front, from bottom to top. This took ages. The moving of the yarn from back to front and back again slowed the pace down, but I do love the result. The yarn I used (the same yarn as in the brim of the algae hat) was very fine, so I held it double. I realized there was a risk there wouldn’t be enough yarn for the whole hat, so I started to think about what colour to use for the crown, but in the end there was just enough yarn.

Growing plants

I had a few skeins of gradient yarn from a brown fleece I had sorted into different shades. I wanted to use the gradient in another hat, and I chose the Gro hat by Fiber Tales.

A woman standing in a bikini and brown cabled hat on a ladder by a lake, ready to get in between the ice floes.
Two hats mounted on balloons on top of two vintage liter measures. One hat natural white, the other natural brown, both in cable patterns.
My Gro hat in a gradient of browns from one and the same sheep. To the right the Gro hat together with the Greystone hat, in my favourite hat blocking setup.

I started at the brim with the darkest colour and ended two shades later at the crown. The pattern is sort of a cable pattern with grass-like plants. The pattern also includes knitting three stitches together right after a cable, which was quite cumbersome, at least the way I did it. So not the most comfortable and swift knit, but I love the design and my subtle gradient.

Shortrows and Rhinebeck

Another Woolly Wormhead design is the Rhinebeck hat, this time with an intricate bauble pattern made sideways with a gazillion shortrows. The pattern description looks daunting with its 88 row pattern repeat for 13 panels, but once you get the hang of it you can knit it with relative ease.

A woman wearing a slouchy hat with a bauble-like pattern in browns and blues.
A woman in a lake wearing a slouchy hat with a bauble-like pattern in browns and blues.
I’m not used to this amount of slouch, but I am sure I will get used to it if it stays with me. But knitting the short row baubles was

At first I was reluctant, I didn’t want it to look too loud. After having browsed through the projects on Ravelry I knew how I wanted to combine the colours. I chose blue-ish and brown colours for the baubles and white for the stripes to keep it all together. I love the result.

My plan is to hang the hats in the Christmas tree and let my family find them. Perhaps they go for the hats I had in mind for them, perhaps they surprise me. I’m keeping the Algae for myself, though.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

Stash and grab

A couple of weeks ago I found a shawl pattern that whispered sweet words in my ears. I saved it for later, but it kept poking me for attention. I realized I had all the yarn I needed for it in my handspun stash. It also dawned on me that I had some more in knits that I haven’t looked at for years and could rip. The pattern inspired me to go through my stash and grab all the handspun yarn I needed.

Lace mitochondria

The pattern is Waiting for rain, by Sylvia Mc Fadden. It is a crescent shape garter stitch shawl, beginning with ten stitches and ending with 438. The interesting thing is the short row lace sections. Just listen to it: Short row lace, isn’t it intriguing! It just starts in the middle of a row and opens up the garter stitch, revealing a sweet lace window to peek through.

A section of a crescent shape lace shawl. The shawl is knit in grey garter stitch, with short row lace sections in shades of blue.
A section of a crescent shape lace shawl. The shawl is knit in grey garter stitch, with short row lace sections in shades of blue.
The combination of simple garter stitch, sheer mitochondria lace and track pant stripes makes the Waiting for rain shawl very interesting.

The lace sections remind me of mitochondria – just a big blob with an intricate pattern in the middle of something completely different.

Contrasts

The shawl was originally knit up in one colour, but the pattern designer also had suggestions for a two-colour play, where she had knit the short row lace sections in a different colour. Furthermore, she had added extra rows of the second colour as stripes in the garter sections. I love the contrast between the simple garter base, the sheer lace blobs and the track pant-like stripes.

The yarns

I was very keen on the idea of making the shawl in stashed and reused handspun yarns only. Here are the players I chose and the decisions I made for my shawl.

A woman looking at the view over a lake. She is wearing a grey garter stitch shawl with blue short-row lace sections.
A woman looking at the view over a lake. She is wearing a grey garter stitch shawl with blue short-row lace sections. A Fair Isle hat in natural colours on her head.
The Waiting for rain shawl in light snowfall. The hat is the Crofthoose hat by Ella Gordon.

Rutan the Värmland 2-ply

For the main yarn I chose a grey yarn I created in 2021 from a variegated Värmland fleece (from a ewe named Rutan). I spun it a few years ago, and divided the fleece into piles of different shades of grey for a gradient from light to dark grey.

Four skeins of yarn in different shades of grey.
The gradient yarn I created from a variegated grey fleece of Värmland wool back in 2021..

I had saved it for a suitable fair-isle pattern that would turn up when I at least expected it, but I realized that this shawl was the perfect candidate for the pattern. As a bonus, the meterage was just right. I chose to knit it as a gradient too, from dark at the neck to light at the bottom.

Burning the midnight oil

Another stashed yarn was actually spun from an industrially prepared blend. I don’t have many of those and I never use them these days.

A handspun yarn in intense blue, beside a supported spindle with some of the yarn on the shaft.
Burning the midnight oil, a mulberry silk/merino blend, from 2016.

Years ago, though, I asked a wool store to make me a blend with the colour of oil in a puddle. It sounds nasty, but if you consider the colour stripped from its ugly context it’s a quite fascinating colour mix. I loved the result and spun a lot of it on train rides. Held double, the fine yarn was a perfect match for the somewhat rustic looking grey Värmland wool.

Rip and rip some more

Sometimes you have a vision of a garment and when you put it on it looks just wrong. That’s what happened with my Stevenson Sweater by Kate Davies. I spun a lovely yarn with white and dyed Swedish Jämtland wool and some natural fawn Shetland wool. Once I had made a hank of the I soaked the ripped yarns I soaked it, used the blue (Held double) for the shawl and saved the white for later. I did save the matchning gauntlets, though. I use them when I work from home on cold days.

A knitted blue hem, a skein on a nostepinne and a pile of cut off and ripped yarn.
A half-ripped knitted shawl in teal and dark brown and two half-wound skeins in the same colour.
Rippnings the Stevenson Sweater from 2016 and the Merging ripples shawl from 2014 to get hold of the dyed yarns.

The story repeated itself with a shawl pattern I found in a knitting magazine, the Merging ripples shawl by Kyoko Nakayoshi. It looked so stylish on the model, but like a random piece of fabric across my shoulders when I had finished knitting it. This too was Jämtland wool where I had actually succeeded in creating a lovely teal dye. This yarn too got a place among the lace blobs.

Dyed and redyed finull yarn

My fourth candidate for the lace sections was a finull yarn that I spun last year. I had saved it to dye with my homegrown indigo. I actually did dye it with the very last batch of fresh leaves, but it was way too much wool in the dye pot, and way too late in the season. It barely got dyed at all. You can see the sad colour as the first couple of light green stripes near the neck. I overdyed it with some Aijozome indigo from Loop of the loom into a lovely colour (the lace section at the bottom of the shawl).

Stripes and drape

Since the lace sections are knit in short rows, the contrasting colours leave a stripe throughout the width of the shawl. Just like in one of the knit shawls in the pattern, I played with this, and added several stripes before and after the lace. It gave a very interesting effect and helped me keep count of the rows between the short row sections.

A woman looking at the view over a lake. She is wearing a grey garter stitch shawl with blue short-row lace sections.
A woman looking at the view over a lake. She is wearing a grey garter stitch shawl with blue short-row lace sections. She is throwing the end of the shawl over her shoulder.
A woman looking at the view over a lake. She is wearing a grey garter stitch shawl with blue short-row lace sections. She is standing with her back toward the camera.
My stash and grab Waiting for rain shawl is comfortable and drapey. Look at how it curls at the ends!

Despite the eye catching lace, most of the shawl is the garter base. Garter stitch pulls the material together lengthwise, so to get length in the shawl there needs to be more rows in garter stitch than in other techniques. This makes the shawl very drapey and feel very safe and comfy in its weight. I love the curled ends, they remind me of the tips of lamb locks.

It took me 40 minutes to bind off the 438 stitches. I chose to do that too in a contrasting colour and I am very happy with that decision, it makes a neat finish.

”Block aggressively”

That was the last sentence of the pattern descrition, block aggressively. I used a gazillion pins, rearranged both them and the blocking pieces several times and spent about an hour crawling around on the floor until I was happy. Well, not entirely on the floor, I skipped up and down the stairs several times too to see from above how the blocking turned out.

A somewhat wrinkled shawl on the floor.
A stretched-out shawl on the floor. The shawl is pinned down onto a large floor puzzle.
Finished bindning off (left) and blocking (right).

The stripes actually helped me in the blocking as they served as a guide for the shape of the shawl. When I eventually decided I was finished I knew the time I had spent was totally worth it. I was also very grateful for blocking wires.

Stash and grab-friendly patterns

I have done quite a few stashbusting projects this fall. Some of them are excellent for small amounts or single skeins of handspun yarn:

  • The Seguin top, knit from a ripped sweater in a commercial yarn
  • The Ursina top, knit from leftovers from an earlier handspun project
  • Hats! The Algae hat is on my needles right now, with the leftovers from the Waiting for rain shawl. And the Hipster hat on another set of needles with a handspun Shetland yarn. I might make another two hats before the holidays.
A woman wearing a linen hand knit top. A square of gathered stitches right above the bust.
A hand knit top on a hanger in front of a wooden shed door. The top has four broad stripes in light blue, medium blue, dark grey and light grey.
More stash and grab projects are the Seguin and Ursina tops.

Older stash and grab projects from my handspun yarns are

  • The Lamina wrap, perfect for small batches of yarn in the same weight
  • Enchanted Mesa sweater, where I have mixed commercial and handspun yarns
  • The Daisy crescent shawl, perfect for your smallest skeins of flowery colours.
Previous stash and grab projects are the Enchanted mesa from 2014 (handspun and commercial yarns), the Lamina wrap from 2017 and the Daisy Crescent from 2016 (background colour handspun as well as some of the daisies, the rest of the flowers are stashed commercial yarns).

The feeling of cleaning out the handspun stash is the sweetest. Like a rinse, a spring rain or a deep exhale.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
Posted on

New socks

I’m not a sock knitter. I love the idea of hand knit socks, but I rarely wear them and I find the knitting quite boring. But then came cold baths. And suddenly I need lots of new socks.

I love Irene Waggener’s book Keepers of the sheep. A couple of years ago I knit myself a pair of pants from the book. Another project I wanted to knit was the new socks.

Socks in the bath tub

I take baths in my lake every day of the year. When the water temperature sinks, the energy in the body rushes to the vital parts – the torso. The outer ends of the extremities are left – literally – in the cold. Hands and feet get very cold when the body works very intelligently to protect the torso. This is where socks and mittens (and a hat) come in handy in the cold bath.

A pair of feet sticking up above the surface of a lake. The feet are wearing socks. A willow tree is mirrored in the water.
A pair of feet sticking up above the surface of a lake. The feet are wearing socks. A willow tree is mirrored in the water.
Socks in the bath tub on a November morning. 8 °C. in the water. Photos from video screen shot. Just seconds later the beaver swam by.

I know cold is a relative term here, but for me that temperature is around 13 degrees for my hands and a couple of degrees below that for my feet. During the autumn as the water temperature sinks I put on neopren gloves and wool socks in the bath. When I saw the new sock pattern in Irene’s book I realized they would be perfect for cold bathing.

Tqasher Jadeed

Eventhough I haven’t knit very many socks in my life I realize that the engineering of the Tqasher Jadeed –new socks – is different than the models I have seen. As with all the other patterns in Irene’s book, this one is built up as a try-as-you-go process where you need to be confident enough to trust your instincts when it comes to the fit. All of the parameters – needles, yarn thickness and numbers – are sort of fluid in a very compelling way. The technique for toes and heels are there of course, but the rest is up to the knitter to balance.

A book page featuring a photograph of a pair of white hand knit socks with a ribbed leg. A twisted yarn end ties the socks around the calf.
Tqasher Jadeed, new socks. A lovely pattern in Keepers of the sheep. Photo published with permission from the author.

Elsa the Gestrike sheep

I had the perfect wool to match the socks, from Elsa the Gestrike sheep. I got the fleece a couple of years ago when I helped out on shearing day at my friend Claudia’s sheep farm. Elsa had beautiful grey wool with lots of variations in her fleece.

Newly shorn autumn fleece from a Swedish Gestrike sheep.
A row of wool staples in different shapes, lengths and amount of crimp.
Elsa the Gestrike sheep has lots of different staple types in her fleece. For the new socks I used the long and conical staples to the left on the rightmost picture.

I divided the fleece into categories of different staple types. The biggest pile was with long, conical staples with around 50 per cent undercoat and 50 per cent outercoat. They were the perfect match for my socks. When I met Irene Waggener this summer I brought some of the wool to show her what breed I had knit the pants with and would knit the socks with.

Yarn and socks

I carded the wool into rolags and spun quite fine singles with an English longdraw. To get the strength I wanted for the socks I 3-plied them with more twist than I would for a different kind of project. The yarn is around sport weight.

A skein of grey yarn
Two balls of grey yarn and a started sock knitting project. Two toe ends are knit on a cable needle.
Two sock feet on knitting needles and a skein of yarn between them. The socks have red pieces of yarn to secure loose stitches.
My 3-ply gestrike wool yarn worked perfectly for the new socks.

I really loved the resulting yarn – rustic but smooth and with a blueish grey sheen to it. It was a joy to knit with, very straightforward and sweetly rounded.

A bath

Happy as a clam I skipped down to the dock with my new socks the other day, the ties secured around my wrists. I knit the socks quite large, which suits me perfectly for my bath. In the mid winter when both water and air temperatures are considerably lower than 8 °C, taking off the socks after the bath needs to go fast. I need to get clothed quickly and my hands lack some dexterity in those temperatures, so too snug a snug fit on wet socks isn’t ideal.

Happy feet with new socks, ready for a cold November bath.

These were very easy to take off dripping wet after the bath (I change into dry socks for my four minute walk back home). Still, I am considering fulling the socks slightly for just a tad slimmer fit. I’ll think about it after tomorrow’s bath. The water temperature has just sunk below 8 °C.

At the dock

I had some shots of the socks at the dock from last week, but the other morning the fog left a beautiful light across the lake and I wanted to take just a couple of more. I mounted the camera on the flexible tripod and set the timer on a picture every three seconds. To start, I took a few pictures on my feet as I was about to get in the water. That done, I wanted just one more picture of my socked feet in the water. I put the tripod on top of my head, as I have several times, and walked down the ladder.

A very blurry picture taken from the sea bed.
I call this “Lake Mälaren seen from the sea bed”.

In a split second the tripod with my phone fell in the water. I gasped for air and just stared down into the darkness, astounded by the fact that I hadn’t been able to catch it in the fall. It was really actually no kidding on the sea bed. I fumbled around with my feet, but I could’t feel it. The lake bed is very steep by the ladder, I can stand just below the lowest step but not ten centimeters further out. I was paralyzed. My bathing friends noticed the commotion and came to me, they had been in the water for a while as I had been fiddling with the first camera setup. Gunilla offered to dive once to see if she could find the camera. She did, but she could neither see nor feel anything.

A tilted picture of a dock at a lake. In the bottom corner is half a smiling face.
The legs of a person bathing in a lake. A water-filled skiff beside.
The first picture the camera took after I had brought it back up was on my relieved face (left). After the commotion I finally took my cold bath (right), in the beautiful fog.

A thousand thoughts rushed through my head, all too fast and too unreasonable to get a hold of. Mostly about how ridiculously vain I had been, chasing a good shot and ruining both my camera and my sweet dip. I gasped for air again. All my previous knowledge about breathing techniques to calm down were blown away the second the camera broke the surface. I felt again with my feet around me as far and as deep as I could reach, and I found something. It could be a leg of the tripod, and it could be a branch. The weight was no clue as other rules of gravity reigned in the water. I grasped it with my feet and hoisted whatever it was up. My still shocked breath mixed with a deep sigh of relief as I had the camera in my hand. It was still taking pictures.

Irene, I know you wanted to see my new socks together with the Sirwal pants, but that will have to wait a couple of months. They are still way too warm, I usually wear them to my walk down to the dock when the air temperature sinks below -6 °C. I can’t wait for winter!

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
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Stash top

Several coincidences led me to knitting this stash top – a weekend in need of a knit. A stashed handspun yarn in need of a project. Hands and mind in need of wool on long work meetings.

The idea for this sweater project started quite a while ago, but was sparked by a weekend in need of a knitting project.

Yoga practice

I practice yoga asana every morning and evening. Towards the end I want to put something on to avoid getting cold, but nothing too warm. I started to look for patterns for a cropped top, something to just throw on before the final relaxation of my practice to keep my chest warm. I found the Ursina pattern by Jacqueline Cieslak and saved it for later.

In need of a knit

A few weeks ago I went with my wool traveling club to our annual wool journey. I realized I needed a knitting project for both the train ride and for our hours and hours of chatting.

A woman wearing a sweater with a knit weather with a stranded colourwork yoke. The colours are white, light grey, dark grey and blue.
Photo by Dan Waltin
Skeins of handspun wool yarn.
I had some handspun singles left from knitting the Telja sweater, a lopi style singles yarn from Icelandic wool, that was perfect for the top.

After browsing Ravelry for a while I found the saved Ursina pattern and decided it was time for it. I had some low twist lopi style handspun yarn left after knitting a Telja sweater by Jennifer Steingass and it was the perfect fit.

Colour scheme

I had five colours left of the yarn – the natural white, light grey and dark grey and some light blue and medium blue that I had dyed. Stripes was my choice for the project. I picked the smallest yardage for the neckline and changed into increasingly larger yardages as I knit. I added a thin white stripe between each colour shift to avoid a gradient feeling.

A top on a hanger outdoors. The top has a short body and long sleeves. It is striped from light blue at the neckline, through medium blue and dark grey to light grey at the hem. A wood shed in the background.
To optimize the colours in the stashed yarn I decided to make the stash top striped.

I have knit stripes with stashed yarn like this before in my Bianka sweater, and the fiddly part is always after separating body and sleeves. both times I ended up with live stitches on cables in body and sleeves, knitting a couple of rounds at a time to end up in an even stripe across sleeves and body. In the end it’s worth it, though, for a smart striping and efficient use of stashed yarn.

Knit reknit

Due to optimistic measures of gauge I ripped and reknit the top. Twice. But I didn’t mind, it gave me something to knit on meetings at work. I remember some of my colleagues looking at my knitting and wishing they had something to do with their hands too to avoid falling asleep in a stuffed conference room.

Ursina and Jacqueline

I want to tell you about this pattern. Of course I fell for the design – the cropped body, the brioche stitch triangle at the hem, the brioche stitch faux seams and the sweet V-neck.

A woman is sitting cross-legged outdoors. She is wearing a cropped handknit sweater in blue, grey and white.
A woman is sitting cross-legged outdoors. She is wearing a cropped handknit sweater in blue, grey and white.
Ursina has brioche stitch faux seams and hem and a sweet V-neck.

But after having bought the pattern and cast on I was astounded by the pattern description. I have never seen a pattern description with such a well-planned structure! Not only does Jacqueline Cieslak accomodate for different body sizes, bust sizes, body shapes and yarn weights, but she has structured the description in a unique and very clear way to make it easy and effortless to find where you are in the pattern. She is a true pattern construction and pattern designer star and I want to knit all her patterns.

My new post-yoga stash top does exactly what I wanted it to do – it keeps me warm after my practice and is cozy to wear. I may knit another one.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

  • This blog is my main channel. This is where I write posts about spinning, but also where I explain a bit more about videos I release. Sometimes I make videos that are on the blog only. Subscribe or make an rss feed to be sure not to miss any posts.
  • My youtube channel is where I release a lot of my videos. Subscribe to be sure not to miss anything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden or to book me for a lecture.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • I am writing a book! In the later half of 2025 Listen to the wool: A why-to guide for mindful spinning will be available. Read more about the book here.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.