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Looking back at 2023

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

Destashing

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

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

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

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

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

The vest that went viral

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

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

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

Birthday raffle

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

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

The knit sleeve jacket

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

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

The jacket features five different techniques:

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

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

Blue

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

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

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

Words flowing

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

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

Here are some blog posts written in this spirit:

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

Do you have a favourite?

Summer flax

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

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

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

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

Meeting fibery friends

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

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

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

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

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

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

Creating yarn

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

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

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

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

A couple of weeks ago I published a blog post where I played with the idea that three of my fleeces had taken over the blog and wrote their little wooly hearts out. It turns out that the journey of words and wool can be adventurous.

The title of the blog post was Pick me and refered – in my mind at least – to the picking of a fleece, as in picking out staple by staple from the fleece mass. As I wrote it (yes, it was me and not the fleeces) I listened to Japanese taiko drums, and when I do that the piece tends to get rather free and wild.

The wild spilling of words

This time was no exception. I love writing this way, just allowing the words to spill uncensored onto the page and letting them have their way with me. The writing process can get very intense and fizzy. Some of my best pieces are written in this spirit. One example is One more beat, which I wrote on a train on the way to teaching a spinning class.

Weaving, writing, traveling and listening to taiko drums. A true journey of words and wool (or linen).

The process is very much alive as I write, the music and the words blend together into a dance, a rhythm that fills my mind with a pulsating vibe. They make the decisions, I just follow along and jot them down, entering a space where I am just the vessel of the words.

Landing

When the words land on the page they transform. They are no longer part of my writing process. Instead, a new process begins the second I share the post – the process of the reader. I have no say in this either, it is a private matter between the reader and the words. The piece takes a new shape in the mind of the reader. I am usually quite curious about what kind of mischief the text is up to in its brand new process.

The process is in my mind and my body. As soon as it comes out in one form or another, it is a a project that holds the memories and connotations of the process.

When I had published the Pick me post I got a few very sweet comments from readers, all about how the post had struck something in them – laughter, recognition or appreciation of the process of creating yarn. But they were also all about a different interpretation of picking than the one I had had in my mind as I wrote it.

A new journey

All the comments indicated that the readers had interpreted “pick me” as in “choose me” (over the others) rather than “pick my staples out of the fleece mass”. This gave the post a whole new dimension – suddenly the presentation of the fleeces looked more like Tinder profiles to swipe left or right rather than the plead to start processing them that was in my mind as the stories presented themselves to me.

I’m picking my gute fleece.

This is quite fascinating to me, how the process, that has been so tangible in my mind for the vastness of a moment, starts a new journey the second they land on the page – the journey in the mind of the reader, equally fleeting.

The beauty of creating

This is the beauty of creating, what goes on in the mind of the creator during the process of creating. The creation, whether words on the page or yarn on the spindle, is just a reminder of that process. When I spin I feel the spinning in my mind, in my hands, between my hands and in the cooperation between them. The rhythm keeps me in the moment, breathing the process in and out between hands and mind.

New memories

The yarn that comes out is something new, the memories of the process, where I was and what was happening around me. When I pick up a spinning or knitting project, my mind instantly throws me back to what I was sensing the last time I spun or knit. When I put on a handspun and hand knit hat to go out, my head is wrapped in the memories the hat holds between the stitches. Sometimes when I pick up a knitting project I hear the audio book/lecture/podcast or sense the train ride/landscape or whatever was present when I knit the last time.

The reciprocity of gifts

The difference between the words on the page and the spinning or knitting is that the words travel to someone else and are reshaped through their memories and connotations, while the handspun yarn or knit garment sparks new memories and associations in my own mind since I create them mostly for myself.

Write whatever wants to be written, spin whatever wants to be spun.

Spilling words from deep in my soul onto the page is something personal and corageous. They are gifts to you and I wish you joy as you recreate them in your personal reading process. As you connect back to me about your reading experience I feel the gift returned.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

Stash and grab

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

Lace mitochondria

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

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

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

Contrasts

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

The yarns

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

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

Rutan the Värmland 2-ply

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

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

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

Burning the midnight oil

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

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

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

Rip and rip some more

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

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

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

Dyed and redyed finull yarn

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

Stripes and drape

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

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

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

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

”Block aggressively”

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

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

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

Stash and grab-friendly patterns

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

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

Older stash and grab projects from my handspun yarns are

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

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

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

New socks

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

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

Socks in the bath tub

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

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

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

Tqasher Jadeed

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

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

Elsa the Gestrike sheep

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

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

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

Yarn and socks

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

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

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

A bath

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

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

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

At the dock

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

A year in wool

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

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

Shearing seasons

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

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

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

Fleece hunting

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

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

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

A tree

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

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

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

When the sun returns

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

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

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

Make room for flax

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

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

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

Late summer collision

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

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

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

What is your year in wool like?

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

Meeting Irene

I spent the past weekend in Malmö in southern Sweden. The goal of the journey was meeting Irene Waggener, author, knitter and independent researcher.

”I will be in Copenhagen in August”, said Irene a few weeks ago. She is currently living in Yerevan, Armenia. ”Do you know any yarn shops there?” ”No, I don’t”, said I, “but I can take the train down from Stockholm and we can meet in Malmö!”. ”Yay”!! said both of us. And so we met.

On the train to Malmö to meet Irene Waggener, I read her book Keepers of the sheep.

Irene Waggener is the author of the beautiful book Keepers of the sheep – knitting in Morocco’s High Atlas and beyond. You can read my review of the book here. I have admired her work for a few years now. Two years ago I knit a pair of High Atlas pants, sirwal, that used to be traditional in the the Moroccan High Atlas and that she interprets in the book. They were typically knit by male shepherds from yarn spindle spun by their wives and worn for sheepherding and snow shoveling in the cold season. I use mine for going down to the lake for my daily bath when the air temperature goes below -6 °C.

Meeting pants

I met Irene and her husband Josh in the castle garden in Malmö. Both of us had brought our sirwal pants for them to meet too. Hers knit by spindle spun Moroccan yarn, mine knit with my spindle spun Swedish Gestrike wool yarn.

Our sirwal pants finally meet! Mine to the left, Irene’s to the right. Photo by Josh Waggener.

The pants look very similar, but there are also differences. I spun and knit mine tighter to fight off the cold of the Swedish winter. The white wool in her pants is somewhat reddish from the High Atlas soil. My black stripes are fading towards the hips. I knit them from the first and second fleece from the same sheep, Gunvor, and her black spots had faded with age. Both of our pants have traces of the pastures where the sheep have grazed. While the wools come from quite different lines of sheep, both the fleeces are strong and sturdy with both soft undercoat, long and strong outercoat and quirky kemp.

Spindles, spindles, spindles!

Irene also brought spindles – one floor supported High Atlas spindle, izdi, one floor supported Middle Atlas spindle, maghzal, and one suspended Armenian spindle, ilik. The Armenian spindle was a gift to me, a precious one. I brought hand carded batts from Swedish Gestrike sheep to try the spindles with. In my Instagram highlights you can see me spin with all three spindles.

High Atlas izdi

The High Atlas spindle is the one the yarn for the pants would have been spun with (and that the yarn in Irene’s pants was spun with). The spinner sits on the ground or floor. The spindle rests on the floor and sometimes in a bowl and is flicked with the fingers of the spinning hand. Irene had published Instagram videos with Moroccan spinners spinning on these spindles back when she lived in the area, and I had saved all of them. On the train to Malmö I studied them to be able to spin on the izdi with some amount of grace and dignity.

I’m spinning on the ground supported High Atlas izdi spindle. Photo by Irene Waggener.

The High Atlas spindle is simple – a wooden shaft and, in this case, a whorl cut out from a car tyre. This type of spindle is traditionally spun with hand carded batts. The spinner inserts the twist into the whole length of the batt before making the draft. I love spinning this way, feeling the yarn do its magic as I move my hands in different directions, aligning the fibers softly in the twist with a draw that reaches between my outstretched arms. The High Atlas spindle typically spins fine high twist sock yarns and bulky low twist rug yarns.

Out of the three spindles I got to try, this was my favorite. The spindle was very simple in its execution and in the requirements to use it, yet it is operated with an advanced technique. In Irene’s videos there is also one showing a very special plying technique. The spinner pushes the spindle tip with a flat spinning hand outwards against the arm of the fiber hand. I didn’t have time to try it, though. The technique reminds me of the plying technique used for Andean pushka spindles.

Middle Atlas maghzal

The Middle Atlas spindle was hand carved from one piece of wood, with a belly instead of a whorl. It is supported on the ground, and rolled with a flat hand against the outer thigh of the spinner, who sits on the floor or ground. I believe this type of spindle was primarily used for bulkier yarns for rugs.

The Middle Atlas spindle is rolled against the thigh when the spinner is sitting on the floor or ground. Photo by Irene Waggener.

The wool for the Middle Atlas spindle would have been carded into rolags. I had only my batts with me, so the yarn I spun was a bit on the fine side, but it worked.

Armenian ilik

The Armenian top whorl spindle is also very simple in its construction. A long shaft and a whorl that looks a little like a door knob. This one is very sweet in its wonkiness and with its worm holes.

The Armenian spindle came home with me on the train. Photo by Irene Waggener.

The Armenian spindle is spun suspended and the twist inserted by rolling the shaft against the thigh of the standing or sitting spinner. This spindle is used for different types of yarn for both weaving and knitting.

Traditional spindles

I have one antique French in-hand spindle, one antique Turkish cross-arm spindle, two Andean suspended pushkas and one Peruvian suspended chaj-chaj spindle. These are traditional in different parts of the world, and still used in traditional textile communities. All the other spindles I have are modern, western made hobby spindles, some of them very luxurious. The traditional spindles were made with simple means and for production spinning, some of these very well worn, wonky and with little worm holes.

Don’t get me wrong – I love all my modern spindles. Holding the traditional spindles is something completely different, though, in the extra layer they add. Smooth in my hand, with the shaft echoing the skilled hands that had once flicked it. I felt so grateful to Irene for bringing them and to the spinners who had flicked them before me. My hands are there now too, together with theirs, in the magic of spinning.

Unfinished conversations

And we talked, the three of us. With ease and dedication we talked bout spinning, writing, knitting. World politics, pandemics and spiked bike tyres. About everything and anything. I loved every second of it.

And we talked. Photo by Josh Waggener.

Suddenly, the magic was broken and I had to go back to the train station. There was still so much more I wanted to talk about. If it hadn’t been for a working day coming up I would gladly have postponed my train ride back home. The three and a half hours we spent together were over way too soon. But we will continue the conversation the next time we meet.

On the train back home

On the train back home I did my best to process our time together, all the things we talked about, everything I learned from both Irene and Josh, all the laughter, and spending time in the beautiful castle garden. As I browsed through all the photos and videos they both were so kind to take with my camera, my heart tingled. It was a wonder that we did get to meet – Irene living in Armenia and me not flying don’t give the best odds for meeting. But we did, and I will cherish our day together. I’m so glad I came and that we managed to synch our calendars. Thank you for everything, Irene! I hope to see you again soon. My pants send their love to yours.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

Flax patch yarn

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

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

My homegrown flax 2014–2022 is finally spun!

Post prep prep

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

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

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

2014–2017

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

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

2018 and 2019

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

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

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

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

2020

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

2021

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

2022

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

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

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

The rehackled waste

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

Experiencing the experiments

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

My flax patch yarn before and after scouring.

Through this I have learned that

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

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

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

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

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

Spinning on the road

I have a long vacation and I will be traveling with my family. One important part of packing is of course crafting projects. A student recently asked me how I plan for for spinning on the road. Here is an extended answer to her question.

One favourite spinning technique for traveling is supported spindle spinning. In fact, I started to learn how to spin on a supported spindle after my husband and I had decided to stop flying, for climate reasons. I was looking for a craft that would be practical for the long train ride to Austria, and supported spindle spinning was my answer. And look where it got me! I published a short video of me spinning on the train, and continued to create videos. Just a couple of months later someone asked me if I could teach the technique, and that is how I started teaching spinning.

Favourites

In the post I will talk about how I prepare for spinning and crafting on the road, but first I will give you some of my favourite techniques:

  • supported spindle spinning
  • suspended spindle spinning
  • band weaving on a backstrap loom
  • different kinds of braiding
  • nalbinding
  • two-end knitting
  • other small sized knitting

And if there is room

  • portable spinning wheel.

Important factors for spinning on the road

There are several things I consider as I pack for spinning on the road:

  • how much luggage space I have
  • how I travel
  • having a variety of techniques
  • portability
  • where I’m going.

This year we’re going on two trips – a week in a log cabin where we will be taking day hikes in a nearby national park, and five days in an Airbnb apartment near the beach.

Luggage space

When I plan what crafts to bring on a journey one important thing is the kind of bags I will be packing in – suitcase, soft bag, backpack or a combination? The sturdiness or squishiness will determine what I can bring and what will be wiser to leave at home.

A small band weave and a 10 gram cross-arm spindle takes up no space at all.

If I travel with a backpack I make sure I don’t bring things that can break or that can injure me. I don’t bring combs or cards on a backpack journey, but a supported spindle is a good companion, as well as small backstrap weaving projects. Smaller knitting projects will usually work fine. Perhaps a suspended spindle if I plan to walk and spin.

If I pack in a suitcase I may bring things like combs, they will be easier to pack in a hard bag than a squishy one. In a suitcase I would also be able to bring fleece in a vacuum bag. If I go by car I bring a basket for various tools if there is room.

The journey

The journey itself is also a factor that plays in. Can I spin on the journey? I don’t craft in the car since I easily get car sick if I need to focus on the project. But a train ride is perfect for crafting!

Crafting on the train

When I travel I prefer to do so by train. Knitting is of course a good option, preferably not a stranded colourwork, though, since there are too many potentially loose items to keep an eye on. Supported spindle spinning will always be a favourite.

When I weave bands on tre train I fasten the warp between my waist and the coat hanger on the back of the seat in front of me (left). If there is no coat hanger, I loop the far end of the warp around my foot, either with the leg straight or propped onto my other knee.

Lately I have also come to love to weave bands on the train. It doesn’t take up much luggage space, none at all, really. Weaving is also quite unexpected and can be quite the conversation starter. I also like the image of the band getting longer the further I go along the rails.

I usually fasten the warp between my waist and the coat hook in the back of the seat in front of me. From my experience with European rail companies, though, I know that not all have coat hangers. In fact, I think I have only seen them on the Swedish railway companies. But do not fret, fastening the warp with a loop around a foot works just fine. In the beginning I make the loop with the warp itself, and toward the end I use something like the torn off hem of an old sheet.

I’m weaving a linen band on a recent train ride.

Before many train rides I have warped for a band without a specific purpose, but the truth is, there is always room for another band! When planning the travel crafting for this summer I realized that I needed a band to tie the inner ends of a linen pinafore dress that I am planning. And so I had the perfect reason to warp for a sweet linen band.

A variety of techniques

When I pack my crafting for a journey I usually like to bring a variety of techniques, at least if I will be gone for more than just a few days. The techniques can vary for the mental variation, but also to avoid getting strained from doing only one craft.

In two-end knitting (left) the yarn won’t roll away since it is secured with a knot. It is knit with a circular needle (or dpns) and is quite slow. Nalbinding is done with a blunt needle only, and the technique is also slow. Both perfect for traveling, both sitting and walking.

I also consider where the craft may be suitable. For instance, I may bring a small band weaving project for sitting down, a two-end knitting project or nalbinding for sitting or walking, and a suspended spindle for standing, sitting or walking.

Portability

I want a travel project to be easy to grab and go. If possible, I want it to fit easily in a bag, both for the journey and for the stay. I don’t want it to be too flimsy or have too many loose parts. A stranded colourwork knitting is not my first option, neither is a large sweater or a lace shawl. I also wouldn’t pick a sewing or embroidery project. There are just too many needles and threads that can get lost.

A bronze-age braid from leftover handspun yarn from my linen shawl.

I also don’t want the project to end before I get back home, I don’t want to risk being empty-handed. Nalbinding and two-end knitting are perfect travel companions. They are both quite small and compact and I don’t run the risk of finishing them since both techniques are very slow.

Where to?

The destination can be important in choosing projects too. Will I be in a city, in the countryside or in the forest? What will I be doing once we get to our destination? A good project for a city may be knitting and a coutryside craft may be a suspended spindle for example. And there are lots of trees to weave with in the forest.

Forest, city or countryside? I choose my crafting projects depending on the destination. Left and right photos by Dan Waltin.

As you may realize, planning projects for a journey is something I truly enjoy. And, secretly, sometimes I may plan a journey depending on the craft I want to hang out with.

What about fiber?

The student who asked me about spinning on the road was more specific than I have described so far: She wanted to know how I pack fiber. She knew I don’t spin from commercially prepared wool and wondered if I pack wool preparation tools or if I process the wool before I leave. Well, that depends. If I go by car and stay for more than a few days I may bring combs or cards. Or just a flicker if I want to spin from lightly teased locks. Otherwise I may process my fiber before we leave and store it in a sturdy box. I do this usually the day before we leave – wool preparation is fresh produce and will go bad after a time. How fast depends on how the preparation has been stored and handled and how prone the wool is to felting.

Examples

So, my husband and I just came back from a trip to a rented log cabin in the countryside. We drove in a rental car that was supposed to be quite small, since our children decided to stay home, but we got a huge car instead. So I flung my travel wheel in and a pair of combs together with a bag of wool.

For a week in a log cabin we had room for my travel wheel in the for some reason giant rental car. I also brought a pair of combs. I used the wool waste as self-felting cushioning in my socks for a few hikes in a nearby national park.

To be on the safe side I also prepared a backstrap loom with a small band, a twelve-strand linen braid, a supported spindle and a 10 gram cross-armed spindle. I spun a silk yarn on both spindles. Now, I just wrote that I don’t use commercially prepared fiber, but this silk top was something I bought many years ago and was there for me to use.

For an upcoming train ride I am bringing a small band weaving (commercial yarn). These pictures are from when we waited for the rental car to charge. I do not recommend this sitting position for a moving car. Photo to the right by Dan waltin. Please admire the camera setup.

Some of these things I prepared for both this trip and an upcoming train journey, especially the weave and the braid. But I did weave for a bit in the parked car while we were waiting for it to charge. So for the train ride I will bring two small project bags – one with the band weave and the braid and the other one with the two silk spinning projects. I will have plenty to do!

Here is a video I shot a few years ago when we took the train to Austria, featuring lots of travel projects.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

Linen shawl

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

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

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

Spinning on the balcony

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

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

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

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

Knitting

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

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

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

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

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

Harvest shades

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

Finishing

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

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

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

Some numbers

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

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

The pattern is Veela, by Libby Jonson.

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

References

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

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

Wool tasting

I always finish my longer courses with a wool tasting – an opportunity to try samples of five unknown sheep breeds, prepare and spin them. But it is also a lot more than that.

This past week I have been at Sätergläntan craft education center, teaching my five-day course A spindle a day. Every day for four days the students get to learn about a new spindle type – suspended spindle, floor spindle, in-hand spindle and supported spindle.

Crafters are welcome at Sätergläntan!

You can have a peek at last year’s course here.

Sätergläntan

This is the sixth time I teach at Sätergläntan, and the fourth time I teach this particular class. Sätergläntan craft education centre is a beautiful spot in County Dalarna in Sweden, with both year-long courses and five-day summer courses. Any day of the year Sätergläntan is sparkling with craft, crafting and crafters. The opportunity to talk about crafting at any of the meals during the week is truly unique, and very dear to me.

Students in deep concentration on suspendera spindles and in-hand spindles.

My students have had their share of joy, frustration, revelations and insights, all from their skill level and way of learning. My challenge as a teacher is to do my best to meet every student at their level and learning process. It is also a great inspiration.

Explore and learn

Although we focus on one particular spindle type each day, the knowledge the students get from one spindle type is of good use to them for the spindle types to come. They learn about the Twist Model and how they use it with all the spindle types, as well as how to work with the fiber we happen to have at hand for different purposes. Through the whole course the students also prepare their fiber. I encourage them to play and explore to be able to make informed decisions as they go.

Floor spindles and supported spindles by Björn Peck. In the background (right) spindle cases by me.

For the course I brought all the spindles for the students. That means 10 of each of the four spindle types I taught in the class. Suspended spindles and in-hand spindles for the students to borrow and floor spindles and supported spindles from Björn Peck for purchase. And there were purchases. My suitcase was a lot lighter on the train back home.

Wool tasting

The wool tasting takes place on the fifth day. By then the students usually feel safe in the group, they know their strengths and challenges and they have built a bank of experiences. They have made mistakes and learned from them. The lessons are worked into their muscle memories.

Wool tasting is an exercise I came up with when I started teaching summer courses at Sätergläntan. In the wool tasting the students get to try a sample of one unknown fleece for fifteen minutes, for a total of five different fleece samples. During these fifteen minutes the students’ task is to prepare (some of) the wool, spin it and take some notes on a wool tasting table I provide them with. They fill in their first impression of the wool, how they want to prepare and spin it, and what the result was. On the edge of the wool tasting table are holes so that they can attach a yarn sample. Everything is done in silence. As they explore the wool, take notes, prepare and spin it I sit and watch, secretly fizzing of pride of my students and the decisions they make.

A diploma

In the wool tasting the students get the opportunity to put all they have learned to the test. When I teach I want them to be able to go home after the course has finished and continue on their own, exploring and making choices based on the tools and the experience they have. And they really do. The table they fill in is just for them, I have nothing to do with it. But the questions I ask them in the table guide them into noting different things about the wool before they start, as they work, and how their little yarn sample turns out when the fifteen minutes are up.

The time limit isn’t there to stress them, it’s rather to force them to make intuitive decisions and not overthink their choices. As they are finished they don’t only have have a table with yarn samples, they have made their own diplomas of the just finished five-day course.

A spinning meditation

After the wool tasting we have a chat about their experiences of it. One final thing is left: The spinning meditation. This is when we spin together in silence. I guide them into noticing aspects of their spinning like the wool, the fiber, the spindle and the motions. Toward the end I invite them to close their eyes as they spin. This is another opportunity for them to realize how, through the week, they have gotten to know their wool with all their senses, trusting that it will guide them if they allow their hands to listen.

If you want to try a spinning meditation, I have a spinning meditation video in English and Swedish.

After a few train delays I finally got back home to my family. I will keep this week at Sätergläntan in my heart and hope to come back next summer. Thank you spinning students and other crafters for a wonderful week!

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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