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Picking fleece

The first step I take with a fleece after I have washed it is to pick it. Staple by staple I pull the tip ends out of the fleece until I have picked myself through the whole fleece. Today I discuss the advantages of picking fleece and why I don’t skip this step.

When I first learned to spin and process my wool I was taught to pick it. Somewhere along the way I omitted this step, for some odd reason. Recently, perhaps a year ago or so, I started picking my new fleeces again. There are so many advantages of picking fleece and I don’t want to omit this step.

Here is a short summary of the steps I take when I pick a fleece:

  • When the fleece has dried after washing I lay a newspaper on the floor and prepare a paper bag where I write the breed of the fleece and when it was shorn.
  • I take a bundle of fleece in one hand and search out the tip ends with the other. With the holding hand as resistance I pull the tips straight out.
  • If I see any vegetable matter I remove this. Some will probably fall to the ground as you pick through the fleece.
  • I also remove felted parts, solidified tips, heavily dirty sections and poo.
  • I take notes of characteristics of the fleece and any ideas I get for handling it in preparation and spinning.
  • When I have picked through the whole fleece I put it in the paper bag and either store it or go on with processing the fleece.
  • All that I have removed will be used. I generally put it in the compost or in my Bokashi bucket.

Model: A Tabacktorp fleece

The model I use in this post about picking fleece is a Swedish Tabacktorp fleece. It’s one of the rarest breeds in Sweden. The official statistics say that in 2021 there were a total of 25 breeding ewes in seven flocks in Sweden.

Tabacktorp wool. Raw (left) and washed in water (right).

My friend Sandy of Swedish Fibre was kind enough to let me buy 1 kilo of her Tabacktorp treasure. The content of the kilo I bought could be from one individual or from several.

Picked locks of Tabacktorp wool in my ullkränku (wool basket). Two saigkorgar (baskets for carded wool) in the background. Both basket models are traditional from Gotland.

I will make a breed study blog post and webinar about this fleece later on. For the sake of this blog post the Tabacktorp fleece is just modeling for my picking demonstration.

Air in

When I pick a fleece I hold a bundle of the washed fleece gently in one hand and pick out staple by staple from the tip end. The staples are usually slightly interlaced at the cut end and picking the staples will open up the cut ends and invite air in between the fibers.

10 grams each of unpicked (left) and picked (right) tabacktorp wool.

Getting air into the fibers makes the upcoming preparation steps easier – if the cut ends are detangled there will be less strain on my body and on the fibers. Picking the fleece will thus reduce the amount of waste compared to an unpicked fleece.

The staples in the Tabacktorp fleece are quite defined and untangled already. Some fleeces are held together to different degrees at the cut end throughout the whole fleeces, but this one almost falls to pieces when I pick it up.

Stuff out

Picking the fleece also gives me the opportunity to remove any stuff I don’t want in it. This could be vegetable matter, short fibers, seconds cuts, felted parts and poo. A lot of stuff will fall out just by the air coming in when I pick the fleece. Other stuff will be easy to remove manually as I pick my way from staple to staple.

The most obvious vegetable matter is easy to remove in the picking stage if it doesn’t fall out on its own as I pick staple by staple.

When I have finished picking the whole fleece the stuff I don’t want is gone (resting cozily on my garden beds) and I’m left with clean and open full-length staples only. The fleece is ready to be used.

This fleece didn’t have very much vegetable matter in it, some juniper needles. No felted parts and almost no poo or dirty parts. It could be due to a very clean fleece overall or to a thorough skirting and rough sorting by the sheep owner.

Establishing a relationship

As I pick my way through the fleece I establish my relationship to it. To me it is important to learn as much as I can about not only the fleece, but also the sheep. In the newly shorn format that I get the fleece in it’s as close to its on the hoof-version as possible. In the unprocessed fleece I get the chance to explore what the fleece did for the sheep. Picking out leaves, needles and grass gives me an image of where the sheep has grazed, what kind of plants that have been in her living room. I get to tread in the hooves of the sheep.

As I pick my wool I establish a relationship with it.

Years ago when I had a thing for Shetland wool I got beautiful fleeces from Shetland Woolbrokers. The stuff I found in those fleeces made my heart tingle, it felt so special to be able to go back to Shetland in my mind. I didn’t find much vegetable matter in the fleeces, but some peat fell out of them occasionally. Especially on the sheep’s sleeping side.

That kind of information is not necessary for me from a strict spinning perspective, but it gives me an image, a feeling for the sheep’s life and surroundings. And with that important connection to the sheep I feel a closeness to the sheep and a deeper responsibility to make her justice. She has grown a beautiful fleece and made it available to me. It’s my responsibility to treat it with the humility and respect it deserves and spin its most beautiful yarn.

A first glimpse

Looking at the wool off the hoof in its on-the-hoof state as staples I get the chance to get to know its characteristics.

Visual

Visual aspects can be

  • colour
  • staple length
  • staple type. To me the staple type is connected with the outercoat to undercoat ratio. Is there mainly outercoat in the staples, equal amounts of outercoat and undercoat or mainly undercoat?
  • crimp – are the staples straight, wavy, curly or crimpy?
  • openness – are the fibers bundled together in the staples or more open?
  • evenness – are the staples more or less similar over the fleece or variegated?
  • an approximate relationship between outercoat and undercoat, if applicable.

What I find when I look at the list above are not good or bad, just information I get from looking at the fleece. Information that I take into account in further processing.

There is a lot of variety in my Tabacktorp wool. Raw (left) and washed (right).

Tactile

I can see a lot from just looking at the fleece, but it’s with my hands in it that I experience its more subtle characteristics. When I dig my hands into the fleece, I can get more tactile information like

  • How the staples detach from the cut ends. Is it easy or do I need to struggle to pull the staples out of the staple bundle? Sometimes there is a resistance or even sort of a felted carpet right at the cut ends. Whether it is from the shearing itself or from when in the growth period the sheep was shorn or something else I couldn’t tell. But if I do have to struggle it tells me that I need to take measures to ease that struggle as I prepare the fleece. A struggle indicates risk of strain, in both my muscles and the fibers.
  • What is the bounce like in the fleece? If I take a bundle of staples and squeeze them, how do they bounce back? This can be an indication of how the yarn will behave as I spin it and how it blooms after I have finished it.
  • How do the fibers relate to one another? If I draft from the cut end of a staple, how is the give in the draft? Does it come easily or do I need to struggle?

I can get lots of visual, more quantitative information from the fleece, but with the more qualitative feedback in my hands I get to know it on a more subtle level.

Sort?

With the information – quantitative and qualitative – I get from the staples as I pick my way through them I get an overview of how it is composed. With that information I can make decisions on whether to sort it into different categories or not, and which categories.

I can choose to sort by

  • Colour. There can be difference in colour over the body of the sheep or between undercoat and outercoat. Sometimes over the stretch of a fiber. This is an interesting way to sort a fleece. A multicolour fleece can give you lots of ways to play.
  • Staple length. For certain projects I may want evenness in the staple length. I can sort a fleece on that basis.
  • Staple type: In dual coats there can be different undercoat to outercoat ratios which can be a parameter to sort by.
  • Coarseness/fineness: Differences in fineness is not uncommon.
  • Crimp: Some fleeces with lots of variegation can have different degrees of crimp on different parts of the body.
  • Fiber type: Do I want to separate undercoat from outercoat?

My Tabacktorp fleece has lots of different staple types that I could easily sort and use for different purposes. Still, they are quite even in length and my plan at the moment is to card it all together, taking advantage of their collected characteristics in one yarn rather than go for individual characteristics in several smaller sections.

Store

When I have picked my fleece it’s ready for storage. My fleece queue is long, my oldest fleeces are from the autumn 2021 shearing. All the fleeces in my storage are picked. When I invite the oldest one to dance it’s all dressed up and ready – with far less vegetable matter, clean, easy to work with and perhaps even sorted into categories. It may be a bit flatter than the last time I saw it, but it will puff up again.

One bag of picked Tabacktorp wool shorn autumn 2022, ready for my wool storage to wait its turn in my fleece queue.

Before I store the picked fleece I make a few notes on my Ravelry page about the wool. Discoveries I have made through the picking such as how it drafts, if I have struggled with it, Perhaps any thoughts I have of spinning or what to make of the spun yarn.

My Tabacktorp wool now sleeps cozily with equally picked Åland, gute, dalapäls and other fleeces in my sofa bed. And when it’s Tabacktorp’s turn in line I will thank myself for having taken the time – and joy – to pick it, get to know it and make notes about it characteristics.

Your wool has a lot to teach you. Listen to it.

If you are a patron (or want to become one) I have just released my November video postcard where I demonstrate how I pick my Tabacktorp fleece.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

It’s been a while, but today I release a new video! This time I show you how I rehackle flax that has been stored for a while. In this case flax from the Berta’s flax project that has been stored since the 1940’s, but I would rehackle any flax that doesn’t come fresh off the hackles.

I actually shot a version of this video in the summer of 2021. But as the time went by, I realized that I had changed my methods here and there. The footage wasn’t the best either.

A video project within a process

I procrastinated for a year. Then I tried again this summer, 2022. I updated my methods and my phone, so I got better footage too. The summer went by and I changed some more methods. I procrastinated a little more. Then I realized that the changes were due to my process, and a process is always changing.

I spun flax all summer and learned a lot along the way. I changed techniques, tools and my understanding of the process, while developing and refining my methods. Here are some changes I have made since I shot the video:

  • I divide the stricks into even smaller bundles for more control and better quality in the hackling
  • I have a different way of dressing the distaff with the fanned fibers (see archive video below)
  • Even if I put my hand very gently on the hackle spikes to keep the flax on them, there is a risk of getting hurt if I’m not careful. I now place my index finger on top of the fibers just in front of the spikes to force the fibers to stay in the hackle without risking getting my hand hurt.
  • I now use a different spinning wheel, my Kromski Mazurka Henrietta (see image below)

So what I give you is a still image of my methods as they presented themselves in the process then and there, in the shape of a video. I have learned a lot since then and a video produced now would look different. I hope my learning process is to the benefit of yours.

Rehackling flax

In the video I rehackle flax that is around 80 years old. The flax comes from the Austrian Berta’s flax project and the flax stricks have been stored in a chest until just recently. While the flax was in amazing condition it was compressed and needed a little love. In fact, I would rehackle any flax that I didn’t get straight off the hackles.

I rehackle 80-ish year old Austrian flax from the Berta’s flax project.

You can read more about rehackling flax in this blog post and more about the Berta’s flax project here.

Time and air

Preparing fibers invites air in between the fibers. In some preparations a lot of air with the fibers willy-nilly, but still evenly distributed, like a carded preparation. In other preparations a little less air and the fibers parallel, but still evenly distributed, like a combed preparation. Fiber preparation thus evens out the space between the fibers by of course untangling them, but also by bringing air into the fiber mass.

Three comparisons: Old hackling and rough rehackling (left), rough rehackling and fine rehackling (middle) and fine rehackling and brushing (right)

Regardless of whether 80 years or one summer has passed since the original preparation took place, time has gone by. Time causes the fibers to compress, whether it’s protein or cellulose fibers, carded or combed preparation. The air that the preparation brought into the fibers has escaped, making the fiber mass more compact and possibly retangled, depending on how it has been stored.

Spot the difference

Spinning from an old preparation would thus possibly be more straining on both the spinner and the fibers and leave a yarn of lesser quality. If you compare an old and a new preparation you would probably feel a struggle while spinning the old preparation and a lightness while spinning the new.

Newly rehackled and brushed flax is just dreamy to work with.

The old preparation would probably pull out more fibers from the preparation than a new preparation would, making it more difficult to spin an even and/or fine yarn. The drafted fibers would probably also be bundled. More fibers would break, there would be more waste, shorter fibers and more strain in the body.

Listening to the flax

As I prepare the flax and spin it I get the chance to know it. If I just listen close enough the flax will tell me how it works and what I need to do to spin it into its most beautiful yarn. As I prepare the flax I get the chance to see the length of the fibers, the fineness and the condition of the retting and, when applicable, the quality of the first preparation.

Enormously long flax fibers from 80 year old Swedish flax. It has been industrially prepared, and stored in untwisted stricks, leaving lots of tangles.

The video I shot in 2021 (and never published) was with flax I had got from a friend. It was the same age as Berta’s flax, but grown and harvested in Sweden. The length of the flax was impressive. The flax had been prepared in flax mill the 1940’s and stored in untwisted stricks. The unorganized storing resulted in many tangles, a struggle in the rehackling, a lot of waste and a lower quality in the yarn.

My 2021 flax harvest was large, but underretted and resulted in a small yield of short (broken) fibers with lots of boon in it.

If the flax is underretted (like my 2021 flax sadly was) there will be more boon in it, the little pieces of cellulose that haven’t been properly removed because of the underretting, there will be more breakage and therefore more waste.

All is as it should be

I believe we learn from all experiences, even if they at the moment may seem wasted. From my 2021 underretted flax I learned to pay extra attention to the retting process. From rehackling the Swedish 80 year old flax last summer I learned how important the storing is. And from spinning the flax from the Berta’s flax project this year I learned what high quality flax and preparation feels and spins like and what I need to look out for. All my mistakes are opportunities to explore and learn. All is as it should be.

Flax experience and depth

I don’t have nearly as much experience spinning flax as I have spinning wool. But this and last summer have been flax summers and I have spun commercially prepared modern (Hungarian? Belgian?) flax, commercially prepared 80 year old Swedish flax and hand prepared 80 year old Austrian flax. During this brief time I have encountered several challenges and learned what they do in the yarn. I know now that rehackling is vital for the quality and yield of the yarn and for my physical health. I know I need to spend time on the distaff dressing, pulling out very thin layers in my fan (the only distaff dressing method I have explored so far) to distribute the fibers as evenly as I can.

An evenly prepared fan gives high hopes for a high quality yarn.

When I rehackle the yarn I get a feeling of what I need to do when I get to the distaff dressing and spinning stage. Every time the fibers go through my hands in the process I get information that I can use to create the best yarn I can.

Flower and root ends

One thing I got a little caught up in while editing the video was the flower end and the root end. In the video I tie the flower end to my waist as I create the fan. In a previous video I tied the root end to my waist. Tyeing the root end to the waist is what I had learned from a couple of books on flax preparation and spinning. I thought I was doing it the same way this year as I did in the older video, but apparently I wasn’t.

A freshly dressed distaff with what I believe to be mainly flower ends at the top.

I discussed this with a couple of flax friends, and it turns out that in most cases it doesn’t really matter what end you start with when you spin the yarn. It is important to keep track of the root ends and keep them even as you harvest, dry, rehackle the flax. This is to get as little waste as possible through the different steps of the process. But for the spinning it doesn’t really matter. I like to be consistent through in my yarn, aiming towards keeping all the root ends in the same direction throughout the yarn, but it doesn’t seem necessary at all. And unless I haven’t processed it all myself there is no way of making sure which end is where.

A distaff in a thousand dresses

I dress my distaff with a fan as in the video. This is the only way I have explored. But in Sweden there are several other methods that other flax spinners are way better at than me, and in other parts of Europe still more. This is a very interesting topic that I would love to explore more. Marie Ekstedt Bjersing shows a couple of methods she uses in this video (in Swedish).

Since I shot the video I have started dressing my distaff a little tighter. In my experience this keeps the fibers better organized.

Here is an interesting method that Christiane Seufferlein, the head of the Berta’s flax, showed me. And in this video the spinner prepares a fan in the most beautiful way. She also dresses the distaff with the flax tighter, a method that I have been exploring since after I shot my video.

In the summertime

There is still so much to learn and explore. Next summer my sweet wheel Henrietta and I will be out on the terrace again, diving deeper into flax preparation, rehackling and spinning. I still have lots of flax from the Berta’s flax project, but I also plan to spin my own flax for the very first time. I expect to learn a lot from that 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 missanything!
  • I have a facebook page where I link to all my blog posts, you are welcome to follow me there.
  • I run an online spinning school, welcome to join a course! You can also check out my course page for courses in Sweden.
  • On Patreon you can get early access to new videos and other Patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patreon only benefits. The contributions from my patrons is an important way to cover the costs, time and energy I put into the videos and blog posts I create. Shooting and editing a 3 minute video takes about 5 hours. Writing a blog post around 3. You can read more about my Patreon page here.
  • You are also welcome to make one-off donations on my Ko-fi page.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • Read the new book Knit (spin) Sweden! by Sara Wolf. I am a co-author and write in the fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.fleece section about how I spin yarn from Swedish sheep breeds.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better content. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • I support Centro de textiles tradicionales del Cusco, a group of talented textile artists in Cusco, Peru who dedicate their work to the empowerment of weavers through the revitalization and sustainable practice of Peruvian ancestral textiles in the Cusco region. Please consider supporting their work by donating to their causes.
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The gift of knowledge

In earlier posts I have written a lot about the knowledge in the hands, muscle memory, the power of slowness and learning through experience. Today I explore spinning and the learning process in spinning in a spiritual perspective. While reflecting over the gift of knowledge I dig into the why of spinning.

During the autumn I have been reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beautiful books Braiding Sweetgrass and Gathering moss. She is a professor of botany and blends her scientific knowledge seamlessly with her indigenous heritage in the Potawatomi Nation. I have had to stop reading several time to reflect over the spiritual message of the book and how I can find a deeper spiritual meaning in my spinning.

Gathering moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer is my morning read at the moment.
Gathering moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer is my morning read at the moment.

The gift of knowledge

I read and journal early in the morning in blissful solitude, when body and mind are sprouting fresh out from the stagnant night. This is my time and space dedicated to reflection and becoming a better person in the world.

Robin Wall Kimmerer writes:

“In traditional indigenous communities, learning takes a form very different from that of the American public education system. Children learn by watching, by listening and by experience. They are expected to learn from all members of the community, human and non-human. To ask a direct question is often considered rude. Knowledge cannot be taken; it must instead be given. Knowledge is bestowed by a teacher only when the student is ready to receive it. Much learning takes place by patient observation, discerning pattern and its meaning by experience. It is understood that there are many versions of truth, and that each reality may be true for each teller. It’s important to understand the perspective of each source of knowledge.”

Gathering moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer, p. 82

I have been thinking about this quote a lot this morning and how I can apply the gift of knowledge – knowledge as a gift to be given when I’m ready to receive it – to spinning. Every time I spin I do my best to listen to the wool and allow it to be my teacher. As I teach I encourage my students to listen patiently to the wool. But the notion of knowledge being given when I as a student am ready gives even more depth to this process. The notion of knowledge as a gift is like a gift in itself, wrapped in a soft pink silk ribbon.

A conversation with the wool

As I work my way through the wool and through the stages of wool processing there is a conversation going on. My hands explore and get feedback from the wool. Reflecting over the quote above I realize that I don’t ask the direct questions, because I know the answer won’t help me. I need to be ready to receive the the answer. The time it takes to get ready may include investigation, exploration, experimentation and patient listening.

I'm listening to my Icelandic wool.
I’m listening to my Icelandic wool.

I learn by experience over and over again as the wool goes through my hands and my mind. The wool replies in my hands with clues of elasticity, give, length, crimp, friction. Small clues that build up to an understanding of the wool when I am ready to receive it. If I’m not ready to receive the understanding I will make mistakes. Which, ironically, do help me understand, but in a more brutal way.

The clues along the road will eventually help me understand the wool and what I need to do. I also believe that the time it takes to figure out what the clues tell me will give me the knowledge. It may also include silently being with the wool, asking for nothing in return. The time I spend with the wool, the time I give the wool, will allow me to reflect and understand what it is I experience.

Example: Icelandic Lopi style yarn

By patiently working with the sweet raw staples of Icelandic wool I get ready to receive new knowledge about how to prepare them for a singles Lopi style yarn.

So how do I get ready to receive the knowledge by my teacher, the wool? To illustrate my thoughts on this I will use my current spinning project as an example. I’m spinning Icelandic wool in the grease from the lock and my example regards the processing of the wool before spinning.

  • When I first met this fleece I wanted to tease the wool with my hands only. But since the tips were a bit stiffened by the lanolin I abandoned that idea. The fibers in the tip didn’t separate enough for a comfortable spin.
  • Next I tried teasing with a flicker. Tip end and cut end. This was a better approach. The teased staples were easier to work with and I could spin a more even yarn.
  • The flicked staples were still worked one by one, though. I wanted to find a way to bundle them together and spin as a mass. From previous experience I knew that flicked locks don’t always separate as evenly as a carded or combed preparation and tend to get dense. I tried hand teasing the staples sideways after the flicking and could arrange the flicked and hand teased staples better as a bundle. It was also more open than separate flicked staples. The sideways hand teasing reduced some of the denseness. It was still a little awkward, though. The drafting got interrupted by tangles and disarrayed and escaping fibers.
  • I worked this way for one or two skeins. Then, out of no special reason at all, I spread each staple in its sideway hand teased state, like an accordion. I layered the accordioned teasings (wow, that’s a new word invention, but I hope you get what I’m after) on top of each other, cut end on top of cut end, tip end on top of tip end. When I had layered an appropriate amount of teasings I rolled the whole accordion pile into a loose burrito bundle and spun from the corner of the cut ends. This works very well. I get an evenly spun yarn that drafts easily over the whole bundle.
First I tease each staple separately with a flicker and then I hand tease it sideways.

The accordion burrito preparation is how I work at the moment. I have spun two or three skeins this way and it is working out smoothly. But who knows, I may find yet another answer as I investigate and am ready to receive new knowledge.

Accordion burrito in the making; I spread the flicked and hand teased staple sideways like an accordion and lay a few on top of each other, cut end to the left, tip end to the right. I roll the layered accordion pile into a burrito and spin from the corner of the tip ends.

If and when that happens I will work with the new knowledge and develop my technique accordingly. Step by step I get ready to receive new knowledge. The way I prepare this wool now at this moment was not available to me when I started. I wasn’t ready to receive and understand it.

Quick fix or receiving the knowledge?

I have written quite an extensive post so far. Throughout the post I have shared clues in the wool through my experience of it. With time, exploration, experimentation, listening and reflecting I have gained, earned, become ready to receive knowledge about how the wool behaves. From that knowledge I have spun a yarn in a certain way, with certain tools and techniques. I could go straight to this paragraph and spin the yarn from a “recipe” created from the bullet list above. But the understanding would be lost. I wouldn’t be ready to receive the knowledge without the time spent observing and experiencing the wool. As I read the bullet list my hands remember how each step felt and the time it took to take the next. Time is my friend here, slow is a superpower. Connecting this approach to a spiritual level makes my heart tingle.

Perspectives

I come back to the same important factors in understanding the wool I work with – the muscle memory, learning by experience, learning by mistakes and the time I spend with the wool. These are all part of my understanding of the wool. In a way similar to how Robin Wall Kimmerer adds the best parts of western science to her indigenous knowledge to understand plants around her I do my best to understand spinning through both physical, experiential, temporal and spiritual perspectives. They may all lead to the same result, the perspectives are just different.

Through different perspectives I get to know the wool. A spiritual perspective adds a new dimension to my understanding of the wool and the process.
Through different perspectives I get to know the wool. A spiritual perspective adds a new dimension to my understanding of the wool and the process.

I may understand these perspectives on different levels and in different contexts. The combination of them can give me a greater depth of spinning. I find a spiritual perspective to be an important piece that adds new dimensions to my perception of the wool. I can rest in the notion that by humbly and respectfully investigating, listening, exploring and experimenting with the wool I will understand more as I am ready to receive the gift of knowledge.

Resources

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

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.
Posted on

From sheep to sweater

It is summer and I have a long and well deserved vacation. My business is in sleep mode so this and a couple of following blog updates will be about recycling old themes. Today I celebrate my first longer video project, Slow fashion – from sheep to sweater.

The video is available in Swedish too, Slow fashion – från får till tröja.

Slow fashion – from sheep to sweater

The video started with an urge to tell the story of the craft – all the hours, skills and knowledge put into one single garment.

A map of what I have learned

I knew a lot less about videography back then. And spinning, for that matter. I could point out a thousand mistakes and aspects to improve on. But I won’t. As I often say to my students – the video is a map of what I have learned. All the mistakes are there to remind me of where I can (and have) improve when it comes both the video making and spinning processes.

So regardless of mistakes or lower quality than the videos I produce today I am still very proud of this production. It has the love for the craft that I want to feature in all my videos and it tells the story I want to tell.

A magical sweater

The sweater itself is magic, at least if you belong to the magical world of spinning. At work nobody gives it much thought – it is just a knitted sweater. Most of them probably haven’t even thought about the spinning wheels on the yoke. The thought of it being made of handspun yarn probably haven’t even crossed their minds. But at fiber festivals, spinning classes and other textile events people stop, feel the structure of the sweater and ask about designer, sheep breed and spinning technique. In that magical world the sweater brings people together. It inspires people to process their wool, spin and treasure their craft. I’m happy to be part of spreading the love that spinning brings me and other spinners. Perhaps I can also inspire non-spinners to learn how to spin.

Happy spinning!

A person shearing a white sheep with hand shearers.
I’m shearing the fine wool sheep Pia-Lotta

You can follow 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.
  • Follow me on Instagram.  I announce new blog posts, share images from behind the scenes and post lots of woolliness.
  • 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.
    If you like what I do, please tell all your fiber friends and share these links!
Posted on

Calculations

In many spinning or knitting projects people have asked me how much time I have spent spinning, how much raw fleece it takes to spin a certain amount of yarn, how much a skein would cost etc. I have often wondered this myself. In this post I will take you through all the calculations of my recently finished fleece-to-garment project.

This is the fourth post in a blog series. The first post was about how to find the superpowers of a fleece and in the second post I talked about consistency. The third post was about design from fleece to garment. Through the blog series I use the wool from one sheep as a case study.

Wool preparation

I started with two fleeces from the same sheep, one spring shearing and one autumn shearing. I had given parts of both to a friend, so none of them were complete fleeces. But an estimation is that I had around 1,2 kg of raw fiber before I started the project.

To make this yarn happen I went through the following preparations steps:

  • I blended the two fleeces together in a big basket
  • To tease the wool I used combs and added the sari silk at this stage
  • I carded the teased fluff into rolags with my hand cards. Every rolag was carded 6×3 strokes
Close-up of a grey sweater with embroidered flowers.
Photo by Dan Waltin

Spinning

  • I spun the yarn with English longdraw. For each draw I treadled 4 + 10 treadles. Darn it, I didn’t count how many long draws I did for each rolag. But there was a lot of treadling!
  • Every single took 16 rolags. The yarn was 3-plied, which equals 16×3=48 rolags for every skein
  • When the last singles had been plied I had 12 skeins of roughly 60 g each.
  • The total weight of the skeins was 700 g. Total length: 1270 m. 700 g of yarn from 1200 g of wool makes a yield of around 58% of the weight of the fleeces. My average yield is around 55 %.
  • 12 3-plied skeins with 48 rolags in each skein makes 576 rolags, carded with a total of 10368 strokes. Roughly.

Knitting

It took 8 skeins to knit the sweater – 830 m and 440 g. Still, it is light as a cloud and feels like a second skin. Or my very own fleece.

Josefin Waltin wearing a dark grey sweater with embroidered flowers
Photo by Dan Waltin

Time investment

For time calculations I tried to make an estimation of each part of the process from fluff to stuff. For example, I knit for 20 minutes and weighed how much I had knit during that time and multiplied it by 3 to get the knitted weight per hour.

Per skein

  • Teasing/combing 20 g of wool: 20 minutes x 3 = 1 hour
  • Carding 20 g of fiber: 20 minutes x 3 = 1 hour
  • Spinning 20 g of fiber: 40 minutes x 3 = 2 hours
  • Plying 3×20 g of singles: 30 minutes
  • Plus sorting and washing for a total of around 4 hours

Total time for 12 skeins: 60 hours (40 for the 8 skeins for the sweater), 5 hours per skein

Oh, and the embroidery yarn. Let’s add another 4 hours for that.

Knitting time

Knitting per hour: 21,6 g. Total weight of the sweater was 440 g, so an estimated total time for knitting is roughly 20 hours. Plus embroidery 2 hours. Ball winding by hand, 2 hours. Add to that designing, swatching, frogging, pattern calculations, blocking etc, an extra 10 h. That’s roughly 80 hours for one sweater.

Cost

“I know you love knitting, how much for a sweater? I can pay for the material cost!” How many of you have heard that before? My usual answer is, “Tell me a decent hourly rate and I’ll tell you how many hours it took to knit it.” You know where I’m heading, don’t you?

Pia’s calculations

A few years ago Pia Kammeborn, Queen of Kammebornia, calculated the cost of a pair of mittens. The post is written in Swedish but the gist of it is: It takes her around 20 hours to knit a pair of half mitts. Textile crafts (or women’s craft) have never really been paid fairly, so Pia’s calculations are based on an average hourly rate for typical male crafts. With an hourly rate of 600 Swedish kronor/ 60 €/ $67, which is what a craftsman in a typical male craft like plumbing or carpentry would earn, Pia’s mittens would cost around 12000 Swedish kronor/ 1200€/ $1320.

“I know you love renovating kitchens, will you do mine? I can pay for the material cost!”. Nobody ever said that. Does that mean men’s work is worth more than women’s? Well, that’s just wrong.

A man and a woman putting together a wooden floor
Back in 2011, Dan and I renovated our bedroom. We considered asking Dan’s father (who built his own house) to help us, but instead we did it ourselves. Together. We still asked Dan’s father to help out, but as a baby sitter. Photo by Dan Waltin.

My calculations

Back to my sweater. We landed in 80 hours totally from fleece to garment. With the same calculations as in Pia’s example that would land in roughly 48000 Swedish kronor/ 4800 €/ $5280. Or, if you are short on cash, a skein for 3000 Swedish kronor/ 300 €/ $332.

Material cost?

Two of the fleeces were championship winners and I bought them at the auction following the competition. I paid around 800 Swedish kronor/80 €/ $88 for all three fleeces, so an estimation for the cost of the material for the sweater is around 500 Swedish kronor/50 €/ $55. That’s less than the rate per hour in the calculations in Pia’s example above.

Less than 300 Swedish kronor/30 €/ $33 for one fleece is way too cheap, considering the all the work invested by the sheep owner. But that is another story and for a shepherdess to tell.

The crocodile in the river

So basically I’m walking around at work with a sweater worth 48000 kronor! But I can’t be the first person to having done that. Or, well, 48500 to be more exact if you include the material cost, but that’s just a fart in the universe in this example.

Josefin Waltin walking in the snow, wearing a dark grey sweater with embroidered flowers.
Photo by Dan Waltin

I’m just waiting for someone to ask me what I will charge for a sweater. I’ll take the bait without hesitation, like a crocodile in the river, unannounced – BAM! – 48000 kronor.

A baby crocodile

I can say that I would charge 48000 Swedish kronor for a sweater. I know nobody would buy it, though and I won’t sell it. My husband tried to convince me to sell a pair of nalbinding mittens on e-bay for 20000 Swedish kronor just to make a point. But I would never knit or spin for money. These things are my babies.

I know many people need to sell their handspuns and hand knits. And I know the discussion about pricing handspuns – and fleeces – pops up every now and then in the spinning forums. Even if nobody will buy handmade textiles with the calculations above it is an important discussion.

As a hand spinner and/or hand knitter you can always charge at least a little more than you think. Like a baby crocodile. Chances are, the more people pay, the more they will appreciate the time, skill and love invested in handmade textiles.

This was the last post in this blog series. As always, I have learned a lot from writing the posts and reflecting over what I am doing and why. I hope you learned something too.

Happy spinning!

You can follow me on 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!
  • 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. The content I create is totally free from advertisement. 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.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better posts and videos. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
    If you like what I do, please tell all your fiber friends and share these links!
Posted on

Design from fleece to garment

Close-up of a grey sweater with white embroidered flowers

Through my years as a spinner I have made lots of projects where I spin for a garment. This time I take the process further and make my own garment design, based on the superpowers of the fleece. In this post I look at design from fleece to garment.

This is the third post in a blog series. The first post was about how to find the superpowers of a fleece and in the second post I talked about consistency. In the remaining post I take you through some calculations. Through the blog series I use the wool from one sheep as a case study.

Design: Margau beta

When I designed the yarn in this case study I worked with the superpowers of the fleece. I wanted to take advantage of the characteristics of the wool in the finished yarn. By listening to the wool and let it tell me how it wanted to be prepared and spun I could allow it to become its best yarn. I wanted the same for the design of a garment – to let the yarn be the star of the garment. So I designed for the yarn. Meet the Margau beta design.

Josefin Waltin walking in the snow. She is wearing a dark grey knitted sweater with white flowers embroidered on the side.
Meet the Margau Beta design. Photo by Dan Waltin

Texture

I wanted a simple pattern with both knit and purl elements. An advanced pattern like cables or lace would take the focus from the yarn too much. At first I was playing with the idea of stockinette stitch with panels of garter stitch. This idea didn’t work very well, since garter stitch fills out the thickness of the fabric and takes from the length. Stockinette and garter in the same row would therefore result in a bubbly structure, which I didn’t want. Instead I came up with simple panels of stockinette and reversed stockinette. The smooth stockinette shows off the shine in the yarn and the reverse stockinette reveals the roundedness of the 3-ply and the colored specks from the sari silk.

Model

I love the look of a raglan yoke. It looks very flattering and knitting in the round suits me as a process knitter. Top-down knitting is what first comes to mind for me, but I wanted to try bottom up this time. I knit the sweater seamlessly with a no-ease fit and waist shaping. Neckband and cuffs in garter stitch.

Design details

The main part of the body of the sweater is knit in stockinette. At the front and on the sleeves there are panels of reverse stockinette stitch. The waist shaping is all made in reverse stockinette side panels. The panels pass the sleeve in the front and back and go between the raglan yoke shapings.

Close-up of a dark- grey knitted sweater with embroidered flowers.
The side panels pass on both sides of the sleeves and between the raglan shapings. Photo by Dan Waltin

Embroidered flowers

I decided I wanted som assymetrical bling on one of the side panels. I spun a yarn from another finull/rya mix breed, also a winner (silver medal) at the Swedish fleece championships and also from shepherdess Margau Wohlfart-Leijdström. She knows what she is doing! This finull/rya mixbreed, however is more rya-like in its character. The staples are long, shiny and quite straight, but also soft (lamb).

A white fleece.
Long, soft and shiny staples of a finull/rya mixbreed.

The fleece was the perfect candidate for an embroidery yarn, and extra special since it was from the same flock as the main fleeces. I combed the staples and spun with short forward draw into a 2-ply worsted yarn.

I had plans to dye it in a light turquoise and a medium turquoise, but the colors turned out all wrong for this project (dyeing is not one of my superpowers). Beautiful colours, but just not for this sweater. I ended up using the natural white only.

Handspun yarn
2-ply embroidery yarn.

The embroidery pattern is simple flowers in chain stitch. I placed them randomly on the left side panel and let them continue on the left front raglan panel and end mid-neckline.

Close-up of a grey sweater with white embroidered flowers
Flowers climbing up the side panels. Photo by Dan Waltin

I have never embroidered on a knitted garment before and I was very careful not to stretch the embroidery yarn. The chain stitch is in itself has some ease. I didn’t stretch the chains since I wanted the rounded shape of a flower petal. that way it works quite well even on a garment with no ease.

Thoughts for a future pattern

I call the design Margau beta. Margau is the name of the shepherdess. I added Beta because it is not a finished pattern. and I haven’t made a pattern to publish for this sweater. Knitting this sweater was a test to see if I could design one at all. However, I do want to try to make a pattern of the design eventually if people are interested. From the experiences of designing and knitting Margau beta I have some alterations to make:

  • I will try to design the second design top-down. I think it will make the yoke fitting easier.
  • The neckline needs to be a bit more rounded and I will experiment more with short rows.
  • I do like wide raglan panels, but I think they will benefit from being a little slimmer. That will probably make the transition between front and back look better.
  • The front panel can also be a bit slimmer. That will probably make the yoke area look better.
  • To make a better balance and fit, I may put a panel at the back too (in this design the back is all stockinette).
  • The sleeves are a bit too tight and will benefit from a little more ease.
  • I am playing with the idea of making some sort of pattern in the side panels, perhaps also in the front panel. To fit a pattern, the side panels need to be a bit wider at the waist.

I just need to spin some more yarn first.

A sweater to wear with pride and love. Photo by Dan Waltin

I am very happy about this design and I wear the sweater with love and pride.

Coming up: The last post in this blog series is about calculations. I will summarize the work with this fleece with some interesting stats!

You can follow me on 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!
  • 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. The content I create is totally free from advertisement. 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.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better posts and videos. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
    If you like what I do, please tell all your fiber friends and share these links!
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Consistency

I wanted to spin a yarn that was evenly spun and learn more about consistency. I wanted to let the yarn shine both up close and as a whole in a garment. To be able to do that I needed to be really thorough and take notes of every step I took on the way from fleece to the finished yarn.

This is the second post in a blog series. The first post was about how to find the superpowers of a fleece. In the remaining posts I take you through designing and knitting a garment and some calculations. Through the blog series I will use the wool from one sheep as a case study.

Consistency from fleece to yarn

To spin a consistent yarn you need to be consistent in every step of the process. With an unevenly spun yarn it will be a challenge to get consistency in the plying. If the wool isn’t evenly carded or combed, it is difficult to spin an even yarn. Wool that isn’t properly blended or sorted, will result in uneven wool preparation. There are many opportunities through the process to control your consistency and even more opportunities to learn.

It may seem daunting to go through a gazillion of steps to get a consistent yarn. But fear not. To start with, a consistent yarn isn’t at all necessary. I love the feeling of a handspun yarn that is not consistent. It can make it more alive. But sometimes consistency can give a yarn that extra shine that it deserves.

In this post I will tell you about different steps you can take towards consistency and about what I did in my case study. Pick the steps you like, play, experiment and evaluate. Do what works for you. You don’t even need to count or measure that much. Here are three simple steps that can help you a long way:

  • Look at the fiber or yarn and find ways to remember and replicate how you want it
  • Feel the material and let your touch guide you to consistency
  • Take notes and make samples
A sheet of paper with wool, tarn and knitting samples
Planning for consistency

For this particular project, though, I wanted to go all in and learn about consistency and what I can do to come closer to it.

Sorting, blending and teasing

Before I prepare the wool I arrange it in some fashion. I can

  • sort the fleece according to quality, staple length, fiber type or colour
  • blend different qualities to make sure the qualities are evenly spread
  • tease the wool as a preparation for carding.

Blending

In my case study I had two fleeces from the same sheep – the spring shearing and the autumn shearing. The staples from the spring shearing were a bit shorter than the staples from the autumn shearing. I wanted to spin the fleeces together to get both these qualities in my yarn, so I blended them. Had it been summer I would definitely have willowed the fleeces, but instead I just tried to blend them as well as I could in a big basket.

Teasing

After I had blended the wool I teased it. My favourite teasing method is with combs. I used my table mounted combing station and loaded the stationary comb with the blended fiber. I loaded each batch with wool to about a third of the height of the tines and I combed three passes for each batch. That gave me an even teasing throughout the wool.

While doing this, I also added the sari silk I wanted in the yarn as a tweedy effect. For consistency I decided to have a set amount of sari silk tufts with each combed batch. So for every batch of wool I combed I added eight staple length tufts of sari silk. That would give me consistency in the visual appearance of the colored specks. It would also be of importance to the consistency of the yarn quality since the proportions of silk to wool would be consistent.

Carding

For consistency in my carding there are a few tricks to consistency:

  • Make sure you load the card with an equal amount of fiber in each carding batch
  • Keep an eye of how much of the carding pad area that is covered with the fiber
  • Count the strokes and passes to get an even density in each rolag.

In the case study I grabbed a tuft of my teased blend and stroked the width of the card with the tuft until the teeth of the card didn’t catch any more fiber. I kept a one inch passepartout on the sides and upper edge of the carding pad empty to control the width and height of each rolag.

I carded six strokes before transferring the wool to the other card and three passes. This together with the technique to load the cards gave me rolags of the same density and weight.

I spun 12 skeins of 3-ply yarn. I made sure that I had 20 g of rolags for each single. Because I had been so consistent in my carding I ended up with 16 rolags for every single. 16 rolags per single in 12 3-ply skeins of yarn makes 576 rolags of around 1,25 gram each, all in the same shape, size and density. That gave me lots of practice in carding and consistency.

Carded rolags
Consistency in preparing the wool.

Spinning

There are several ways to control consistency when spinning. Apart from adjusting tension and ratio you can

  • keep an even treadling
  • count the treadles for each draft
  • keep an even amount of fiber to each draft
  • stop your drafting hand at the same distance from the orifice for each draft
  • keep an even distance between your front (yarn) and back (fiber) hands.
  • take notes of the twist angle and twists per inch
  • make samples and compare your current spin to the main sample
Skeins of dark grey yarn
Consistent yarn

Another way to get a consistent yarn is to leave some lanolin in the fleece. The lanolin helps me get a smooth draft. Usually I don’t use any detergent at all when I wash my wool (most Swedish sheep breeds are quite low in lanolin), so there is alway enough lanolin left after washing to give me that smooth draft.

I used several of these points in my case study. I spun the yarn with English long draw, which is an excellent opportunity to practice spinning with consistency. For building up twist I kept a set treadle count (4) and for making the draw and adding twist another set treadle count (10).

By keeping an eye on my posture while spinning and keeping my arms close to my body I made sure my hands were at the same distance from each other and from the orifice. I tried to keep my fiber arm elbow close to my body and move my fiber arm outwards to a comfortable angle from my body to control the length of each draw. I also tried to feed an equal amount from the rolag in each draw. This was more of a feeling in my hand than any calculations.

The fact that my yarn was 3-plied also added to the consistency. With three separate singles the chances for a consistent yarn is better than for a 2-plied or chain-plied yarn.

Yarn rolled onto a piece of cardboard
A consistent yarn doesn’t spin itself. It takes testing, counting and documenting.

When I started spinning this yarn I experimented my way to the yarn quality I wanted – thickness, twists per inch, drafting method etc. I saved the sample that I had decided would be my guide. All through the spinning I measured my spinning to this main sample to make sure I was on the right track.

Plying

At this late stage in the process from fleece to yarn, the measures I took in the beginning towards consistency are really paying off. I have three singles that are consistent in thickness, density and twist angle. But there are still some things I can do to add consistency to my yarn. I can

  • keep an even tension between the singles when I ply
  • keep a set treadle count for each feed into the orifice
  • feed an equal length of yarn into the orifice every time
  • Stop every now and then to check the twist angle and balance

This is what I did for this spinning project and it is what I generally do when I ply. I also make sure I move the yarn between the flyer hooks so that I feed an equal amount of plied yarn to every hook.

Some people don’t ply until all the singles are spun and make sure to ply the first singles together with the last singles. It is easy to gradually change the quality of the singles if you spin over a longer period of time. By mixing the singles from the earliest and the latest stages of the spinning, you avoid ending up with different gauged skeins. I have not tried this method yet, mainly because I’m too lazy to transfer all the singles to toilet rolls.

Record keeping

I did end up with a consistent yarn and all the methods I used in aiming for consistency really paid off. I did a lot of experimentation to see which steps I was comfortable doing and that I thought I could keep up with for the whole project.

Ravelry

Ravelry is a very powerful tool where you have the opportunity to keep track of your fiber stash and handspun yarn. I use the different features in my personal Ravelry fiber stash and handspun pages. As the proud geek I am, I record every fleece (and occasional industrially processed fiber) I have and every yarn I spin. I won’t go through every feature you can keep track of, but there are a lot. If you are on Ravelry you can check out my notes for this yarn here.

One of the features I use on Ravelry is the grist calculation – how much meterage or yardage you get per pound or kilo. I usually calculate the grist for every skein to keep record of the spectrum of grists for the skeins in one yarn. Out of the 12 skeins I spun in my case study, one had a grist of 1948 m/kg and two between 1650 m/kg and 1690 m/kg. The other nine skeins ended up with a grist between 1726 m/kg and 1900 m/kg. For me, that is quite consistent.

The satisfaction of a finished yarn

Sample cards

Even if Ravelry is a very powerful tool, you can only get so far with digital record keeping and pictures. For this project I combined these notes with samples of fiber, singles, plied yarn and knitted swatches. And it is so nice to arrange all the samples on a fancy paper. You have everything gathered in one place and you can make notes of calculations, methods, tools and a general feeling of the yarn – nice and orderly and good.

A sheet of paper with wool, yarn and knitting samples
Record keeping – nice and orderly and good.

Spinning for consistency felt very rewarding and I did learn a lot. One of the most important things I learned was that consistency starts already at the fleece – spinning a consistent yarn requires focus on more parts of the process than just the spinning itself. Also, I learned that spinning a consistent yarn takes time and effort, but also that the energy is very well spent. I love how my yarn looks in the individual strands and as a whole.

Even if I won’t strive for consistency in every yarn I spin, there are many techniques from this project that I will incorporate in my coming spinning project. Just the awareness of what a technique or a measure taken will do for my spinning makes me better equipped for planning and implementing a project.

Happy spinning!

This is, indeed, happy spinning!

Don’t forget about the spindle case giveaway! It is open until next Saturday, January 26th at 10 a.m. CET (world clock here)

You can follow me on 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!
  • 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. The content I create is totally free from advertisement. 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.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better posts and videos. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
    If you like what I do, please tell all your fiber friends and share these links!
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The superpowers of a fleece

A sken of dark grey yarn with colored specks in it

For a long time I have wanted to spin a yarn and knit a project where I start from the characteristics of the fleece and make a yarn that highlights the superpowers of that particular fleece. I wanted all the decisions I made from preparing the wool to designing and knitting a garment to be made with consideration to the fleece I had started with.

This post is part of a new blog series. In four posts I will take you through preparing, spinning, designing and knitting a garment, looking at consistency and some calculations. I will use the wool from one sheep as a case study.

A finull/rya gold medalist

In the 2017 Swedish fleece championships I got my hands on a beautiful, dark grey finull/rya crossbred. It is very soft with airy staples and mostly undercoat.

From spring to autumn

The ewe who grew this winner fleece was shorn in the spring, which usually means a little coarser wool and shorter staples than the autumn shearing. This fleece, though, was wonderfully soft.

A finull/rya mix and gold medalist at the 2017 Swedish fleece championships, shorn in the spring. Sheperdess: Margau Wohlfart–Leijdström

The competition had taken place in September, and I realized that the ewe probably was still wearing her summer coat. I contacted the shepherdess, Margau, and I was right, she hadn’t done the autumn shearing yet. A couple of weeks later, I had the autumn shearing in my hands. A little longer staples and even softer than the spring shearing.

Same sheep, shorn in the autumn. The staples are a bit longer and the tips are slightly sun-bleached.

Finding the superpowers

For a long time I was thinking about what I wanted to do with the fleeces. The spring fleece was a gold medalist and I felt a responsibility to make the most out of it. I wanted to let the wool tell me how it wanted to be spun to become its best yarn.

To look for the superpowers in a fleece I need to examine the fleece itself. But I can also get some clues from considering the characteristics of the breed in general, in this case two breeds – Swedish finewool and Rya.

Swedish finewool and Rya

Wool from Swedish finull (closely related to Finn) is typically very fine and soft with a high crimp (2–10 waves per cm). It has well defined staples of up to 8 cm. It is a good choice for spinning a lofty yarn with longdraw from carded rolags.

Rya has very long staples (up to 30 cm) of strong and shiny fibers and about 60% overcoat. A worsted spun yarn from combed top would be a good choice for this kind of wool. Rya is often used in weaving. The combination of the two can make a winner.

A finewool/rya crossbred

The shepherdess Margau has a flock of 25 finewool and rya sheep and has also crossbred these for several years. This has resulted in wool with the best of the superpowers of both breeds – strong, shiny and soft. She has won several medals from the Swedish fleece championships.

The wool I got from Margau is truly magnificent. I am a sucker for grey. This wool has shades of medium to dark grey with a hint of brown. The wool shorn in the spring has the staple length of finewool sheep, up to 8 cm. It is very soft and airy. I would say it looks more like finewool than rya, but the staples are more open than finewool. Finewool can be tedious to prepare since the staples usually are very thin and defined. This wool is a lot easier to prepare.

The autumn shearing has longer staples and a bit lighter. The tips are slightly sun bleached. The overall feeling of the wool is soft, but it is also clear that the wool is strong and shiny.

A row of wool staples
Staples from the spring and autumn shearing of a finewool/rya ewe

This summer I had made a tweed experiment where I blended the autumn shearing with some sari silk. I really got a taste for the mixture between the dark wool and the colourful specks of sari silk. I decided that I wanted to use the spring and autumn fleeces together and blend them with the sari silk for a tweedy yarn.

Fiber preparation

I wanted to be really thorough and sample my way to the best yarn for this wool. I knew from the experiment I had done earlier that carded rolags was the best way to prepare this wool. Before that could happen, though, I needed to go through a few other steps.

Mixing the fleeces

The spring and autumn shearings were a bit different – the spring shearing was shorter because most of the nutrition had gone to the lamb during gestation and lambing period. The autumn shearing had longer staples and were also a bit sun-bleached. I wanted all of these characteristics in the yarn – the short staples for loftiness and the longer for strength – so I mixed the fleeces in a big basket.

Teasing and blending

I used my combing station to tease the wool. This is the way I usually tease before carding, it is a quite efficient method. In this step I could also blend the sari silk with the wool.

A braid of turquoise based sari silk
Sweet sari silk

I loaded the stationary comb with the wool, not considering staple ends or directions, I just loaded ruthlessly to about a third of the height of the tines. At the top I added the sari silk. I combed three passes and then removed the blended fiber from the stationary comb tuft by tuft. This left me with clouds of wool blended with sari silk.

Carding

I am quite used to carding and I have my way of doing it that I think works quite well. Still, after watching the Interweave downloadable video How to Card Wool: Four Spinners, Four Techniques, I made some adjustments. I used to load the whole width of the card with wool, but now I leave a one inch passepartout of the card empty on the sides and top of the carding pad. This way I make sure that all the fibers are actually on the carding pads and not escaping through the sides. I also pay more attention to rolling the rolag between the cards to make neater and more uniform rolags.

Carding is something I love doing, and with these adjustment it became even more satisfying to see the fluffy teased clouds turn into proper and uniform rolags.

Sweet hand-carded rolags with specks of recycled sari silk.

Spinning and plying

I wanted a soft and round yarn, so my idea was to spin a 3-ply yarn with long draw. I made lots of samples with long draw in different thicknesses, but I wasn’t really happy with the results. All the samples felt too dense and not soft enough.

Spinning

For a while, English longdraw had been lurking in the back of my mind, but I was a bit reluctant to try it. If I liked it it would mean that I would have to spin everything with english longdraw and I wasn’t sure I would be able to do that with the consistency I wanted. But I tried it and realized that I had found the best way to spin the rolags. The samples were soft and lofty, and it felt just right. I ended up with a sport weight thickness that seemed perfect for the wool.

yarn samples of different thicknesses
I sampled my way to the best 3-ply yarn for my fleece

Spinning longdraw requires really well carded rolags. With any unevenness in the carding there is a risk that the yarn will be uneven and/or break in the draw. This is even more true for English longdraw where you draw one arm’s length in one motion. Having little specks of short fibers in the rolags feels a bit counter productive here. I didn’t let that stop me, though, I just had to take extra care in examining the roving before setting the twist. I think the yarn broke just a handful of times during the whole spinning.

When I spun the yarn I could feel the amount of blending of the two fleeces. In some rolags the drafting was really easy, almost too easy. This meant that I had mostly shorter staples from the spring shearing in this rolag. In others, the drafting was a bit tougher due to a higher amount of longer staples from the autumn shearing. The longer staples were important to the durability of the yarn, but too much of the longer wool would make a denser yarn than I wanted. Had I done this preparation in the summer I would definitely have mixed the fleeces by willowing them.

A bobbin with dark grey yarn with specks of colour
A bobbin full of yum

Plying

When I ply I like to transfer the singles together to a new bobbin. This way I start plying from the same end as I started spinning. It also allows me to go through the singles one more time before plying. I don’t need to handle three individual singles when plying. Instead I ply them in a bundle straight off one bobbin.

A skein of dark grey wool with colored specks in it.
A finished skein of final/rya tweedy yarn, full of superpowers.

Getting to know a fleece

This wool has gone through my hands numerous times. From sorting, teasing, carding, spinning and plying. I try to read the fleece to find out what I need to do to let it shine. In handling the fiber I get to know know what it feels like, how it sounds, the staple length, the crimp, how well it drafts, how much lanolin is in the wool. Every time the fiber goes through my hands I get new pieces of the puzzle. It is like every step in the process gives me a deeper and broader knowledge and understanding of the wool.

A sken of dark grey yarn with colored specks in it
Some tweedy loveliness

Coming up: In the next part of this blog series I will dive into consistency in all the steps in the process and look at how I take measure – literally – to end up with a yarn that is even.

You can follow me on 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!
  • 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. The content I create is totally free from advertisement. 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.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better posts and videos. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
    If you like what I do, please tell all your fiber friends and share these links!
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Slow

A friend of mine made a big personal change in her life recently. She had decided to listen to her heart and go back to the university for the third time after already having made a big career change once. Someone said to her that it was better to strive inwards than upwards. This sentence stuck to me and it floats around in my heart and reminds me softly every now and then to embrace the superpower of slow.

To get you in the mood for slow I give you a short and sweet video where I show you how I wind a ball of handspun yarn with my thumb.

Share the video and blog post if you like them!

The power of slow

Slow is for me a form of connection to the here and now. In society today, speed is power. There is a vast array of information rushing by every second. I need to sort things out in my brain and figure out what is important to me and what is just a waste of my time and energy.

With technological  speed I can reach more people in a shorter time, which is of course of importance in sharing my online work. I rely on this speed. But when we make shortcuts to cut costs and get more done faster, someone else will have to pay for it with their time, work and health. If I want to buy a sweater, somebody must do the work for me. And the cheaper the sweater, the more this someone has to pay. There is a big difference between price (what I pay for a sweater) and cost (what someone else has to pay for me to get a cheap sweater).

I can make my own sweater. Even if I will let someone else take care of the whole sheep part, I usually do know the sheep owner. Once I get my hands on a fleece, I can do all the steps and end up with a sweater. And the process will definitely be slow. If you are a spinner or any other kind of crafter you know this. I have made two videos with the concept of slow in mind: Slow fashion – from sheep to sweater and Slow fashion 2 – from sheep to shawl.

Josefin Waltin spinning on a supporter spindle and wearing a sweater with spinning wheels
A sweater knitted with my handspun yarn. The sweater has the leading role in my video Slow fashion – from sheep to sweater

I have paid for my sweater with my own time, experience, skills and design. By dedicating all this time to the process of making, I will gain so much more than just a sweater.

The power of thought

Being creative allows you to entertain the creative side of your brain.  When I spin (or do any kind of craft that I am fairly comfortable with) I also open up the door to creative thinking. Creative making in this sense allows for creative thinking. I can take advantage of this. If I feel a bit dull minded I go to my spinning tool of the day and spin. After a while I enter the crafting bubble. This state of being in the making sends a signal to my synapses to open all the doors to creative thinking. My dull mind becomes sharp and I can solve a problem or give birth to a new baby idea to take care of.

Josefin Waltin spelning on a supported spindle
Creative making and creative thinking

It is like being creative takes me to a place where I can find balance between focus on the process and unrestrained thinking – the crafting flow. It is very much like meditation. I have the same feeling in my body after crafting as I do after meditation – I feel light, empowered and balanced.

The power of touch

When I get my hands on a fleece I get to know it. Through all the steps in the process from fleece to garment every single fiber has gone through my hands numerous times. My hands tune in the channel of the superpowers of this particular fleece. They know the staple length, they know how the crimp behaves, how it drafts and how the yarn should feel when it is just right. My hands enter their own crafting bubble and after a while they just know how to prepare the wool to make the finished yarn show off all the superpowers of the fleece.

Hands feeling a fleece
The power of touch

My hands become an extension of my brain – like antennae – and allow my mind to read and interpret the material I work with.

Respect

Crafting is a sustainable way to use natural materials instead of buying new stuff. You may have heard of the “3 R’s” of waste management – reduce, reuse and recycle. Crafting is a part of this. You reduce the waste by using natural materials, you reuse the material instead of throwing away old stuff and buy new and you recycle by mending broken things.

I would like to add respect to this trio. By getting to know the material I work with I gain a sense of respect for it. I learn about the superpowers of this particular material and what it can give me. In return I handle the material with care and respect and highlight its superpowers in the things I create. You can compare it to gardening. The soil gives nourishment to my crops and I need to give something back to the soil when I harvest to be able to harvest again. By using the natural material to the best of its potential and all that it gives me I respect it.

Recently I have embroidered a lot. There is a slow process for you! But as all crafting it puts me in the crafting bubble and I am in my hands again, happy as a clam. Suddenly I want to save all the abandoned linen floss and embroidery silk in every flea market in all the land and make pretty patterns to save the world.

An embroidery, linen on wool
Slow fireworks embroidered with linen floss found – and saved – at a flea market.

Winding a ball of yarn

The faster things roll in society, the more important slow becomes. By making things slow I make an effort to balancing all the speed around me and hopefully getting some peace of mind in the process. It can be as simple as winding a ball of yarn.

Thumb nostepinne

I do own a ball winder and I use it sometimes. But I prefer using my thumb. Recently all my skeins have turned into pretty thumb wound balls of yarn. It gives me even more time to feel the fiber and once again pay tribute to its superpowers and all that it has given me.

Winding a ball of yarn with your thumb as a nostepinne is slow. Slower than using a nostepinne and definitely slower than a ball winder. But it gives me more time to hang out with the yarn that I have put so much skill, love and care into. I get time to watch the yarn in all its glory and remember the process of making it. And what is another fifteen minutes spent on a ball of yarn that has already taken me hours upon hours to process and spin? I like to think that I owe it to the yarn to spend that extra time and care to make it shine.

The technique

The technique is basically the same as for winding with a nostepinne, but instead of turning the nostepinne you will turn the ball on your thumb.

If you happen to be right-handed, you have the opportunity to learn how to wind with your left hand. You can also translate the image to right-handed in your head. The description in the titles is made to work with any hand. This is how I do it:

  • If I work from a skein I put it over my knees or the arm rest of my chair and wind from there.
  • I hold the yarn end in my hand and wind the yarn very loosely around my thumb. You don’t want to stop the blood flow in your thumb and you do want to be able to turn the ball with ease.
  • I wind diagonally from lower outside of the thumb to the upper inside.
  • For every round I place the strand of yarn closer to the inside of the thumb.
  • After a while I can wind a little less loosely.
  • When the front is full I turn the ball outwards. This way I can keep placing the strand of yarn towards the inside of the thumb again. This is where I would turn the nostepinne if I were using one.

I shot the video on Christmas Day. I generally don’t make outdoor spinning videos in the winter since the lanolin solidifies in the cold. But for winding yarn I don’t need to draft.

A hand wound ball of handspun yarn. A winter city in the background
Let your yarn shine!

The setting is our terrace overlooking Stockholm. In the background you can see Essingeleden, the largest traffic route in Sweden, which is anything but slow.

The yarn I wind in the video is the yarn I spin in my English longdraw video. The mittens featured in the video were knit with my handspun Shetland and Jämtland yarn and I used the pattern Stevenson Gauntlets by Kate Davies.

If you are not already there, try to embrace the rhythm of slow and strive inwards.

Happy ball winding!

You can follow me on 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!
  • 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. The content I create is totally free from advertisement. 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.
  • In all the social media I offer, you are more than welcome to contact me. Interacting with you helps me make better posts and videos. My private Facebook page, however, will remain private.
  • If you like what I do, please tell all your fiber friends and share these links!