woolen Archives - Josefin Waltin spinner

November 23, 2024November 23, 2024

Panther and Starling

I got a fleece black as the night and transformed it into two yarns showcasing its superpowers – one strong and shiny and one soft and warm. I call them Panther and Starling.

If you are a patron (or if you want to become one) you can see a demonstration of how I spin these yarns in my November 2024 video postcard.

Every year there is a Swedish fleece championships and I like to buy a couple of fleeces at the auction following the prize ceremony. At the 2022 championships I bought a black Rya lamb’s fleece as a challenge to myself.

Long staples of black wool — 25 centimeter staples of a black Rya lamb’s fleece.

I think it is difficult to spin dark fleeces since I can’t see the fibers properly. Also, I never wear black. But I had made my decision and the beautiful fleece was in my stash. For a long time. I had postponed spinning it, but this fall I decided to spin it before it got too old and brittle.

Separate

The shine in this black rya fleece is remarkable, with strong outercoat fibers of 23–27 centimeters and soft and fine undercoat fibers of 10–15 centimeters. I decided to spin two yarns, one worsted spun warp yarn and one woolen spun knitting yarn.

Three rolags of black wool with specks of colour in them, and two black combed tops. Autumn leaves around them. — Carded rolags of the shorter fibers, together with recycled sari silk, and combed tops of the longer fibers.

I did the preparation in two steps for both of the yarns. To begin, I combed the wool. I didn’t doff the outercoat in a long top, though, instead I just pulled out the longest fibers and saved them in a box where I had marked the cut ends and tip ends of the fibers. In the next step I pulled the remaining (shorter) fibers off the combs and set them aside. I re-combed the longest fibers and dizzed them off the combs and rolled the top into bird’s nests. The last preparation step was the undercoat; I carded it together with small tufts of recycled sari silk.

Outercoat and undercoat

I say longer and shorter fibers here, not outercoat and undercoat. In my first trials I made sure to get mainly the outercoat in the top and mainly the undercoat in the rolag. But the yarn I made from the undercoat felt a bit too coarse, and so I used only the finest fibers for the rolags.

A person spinning black yarn on a spinning wheel. — I’m spinning the carded rolags with an English longdraw. (screenshot).

This meant that there was a spectrum of fiber lengths – both outercoat and undercoat – in the combed top. You can see it in the bird’s nests above – the very shiny part is most probably outercoat and the more matte is most probably undercoat fibers.

A woman making a face as she is trying to break a strong piece of yarn. — The worsted spun yarn is very strong and it nearly broke my skin when I tried to break it (Screenshot).

Even if there is a spectrum of fiber lengths in the worsted yarn, it is still very strong and I will trust it as a weaving yarn. At least when it comes to strength, its inclination to cling to neighbouring warp threads remains to be seen.

Of the total weight, 60 per cent was the worsted yarn. It might have been different if I had chosen to divide it more strictly by fiber type. The total yield (raw fleece to finished yarn) was 65 per cent, which is higher than my average 55 per cent.

Panther and Starling

I reached the bottom of the wool basket this week and plied the last skein of each sort. I love how they turned out. It was a challenge to spin the black fibers, especially this time of year, but I did it. The long fibers were a challenge to handle, but my hands got used to working with them in the end.

A pile of black skeins in the snow. — Panther and Starling – nine skeins of strong and shiny warp yarn and five skeins of soft and warm knitting yarn.

I call the worsted yarn Panther – strikingly shiny, black and strong. The softness and the coloured speckles on the woolen yarn begged me to call it Starling, and so here they are – Panther and Starling.

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

February 17, 2024February 17, 2024

Triple time

When I count I automatically group the numbers in clusters of four – counting four steps and then another four in the staircase, four stitches in a pattern repeat, groups of four breaths in the cold bath. Also, usually four treadles at a time on the spinning wheel, as if I were spinning in common time. This yarn, though, wanted to be spun in triple time, a waltzing yarn.

I spin in triple time, treadling each wooly part through dancing hands
Trip-le-time, trip-le-time,
trailing wool, back and forth
One-two-three, four-five-six, gather twist,
seven-eight-nine, make the draw, arm's length back,
thirteen-fourteen-fifteen, yarn slides through
gather twist four-five-six.

fibers live, open up the twist,
finding space in the yarn, yield to the twist,
four-five-six, make the draw,
back and forth, leaning in to gather, back to draw the yarn, floating the twist, live in the fibers, between my hands, leaning forth again.

A row of wool staples in the snow, colour sorted from black to light grey. — Icelandic wool separated, and the undercoat teased

Two hands separating the outercoat and undercoat of a staple of wool. — Icelandic wool separated, and the undercoat teased

Once sweet locks of Icelandic wool
pulled apart,
overcoat left, sparkling of charge
undercoat right, hair on end like the morning after
orderly piles, one for each
tease by hand
arched fibers stretched, layer by layer
Welcome air!
to breathe, to puff, and gently let go.

A person carding wool, the wool stretching between in a movement between the cards. — Card, tease and roll, in triple time.

A person carding wool, transfering the fiber between the cards. — Card, tease and roll, in triple time.

A handful of wool
offered to the card
softly-softly brush,
one-two-three
transfer wool
four-five-six,
shape the roll
promising loft
carding a waltz.

Trip-le-time, trip-le-time,
swaying and dawning a promise of yarn
seven-eight-nine, pulse of the twist eager to rush through
How can't I see it, that dazzle of fibers?
ready to catch the yarn,
make the yarn,
strengthen, soften
to the tune of the waltz.
Trip-le-time, trip-le-time
swaying the waltz,
softly.
Gently.
Fiber and yarn, that sweet spot between,
free to glide,
free to twist,
stay in the space, conform to its shape
Once there, inviting the twist back in
to seal, to protect the strength,
to surrender to the yarn.

A woman spinning from a rolag on a spinning wheel. A basket of carded wool in the background. — Bildtext

Four-five-six
make the draft,
shooting the fibers into its power,
still somewhat fiber, still somewhat yarn,
in limbo,
suspended between airy and dense,
between soft and strong. 
Hands in conversation through the yarn,
the bubbling
of the fire
in the point of twist engagement,
a point that is no point,
but a context of in-betweenness,
neither rolag nor yarn,
yet both, and still none,
open and close,
until my hands feel the spot to settle in, allow the twist back,
to seal, to confirm, to conform
in a newborn yarn, 
to land quietly, gently on the bobbin,
strand next to strand,
an arm's length from the rolag they were once part of,
yet a lifetime away,
a new shape, a new purpose.

Reading my words
makes me see
that I write
in clusters of three,
to the beat
and the sway
of a
tri-ple-time waltz.

Trip-le-time, trip-le-time,
the dance in the yarn
in my hands
in my mind,
in my words and my soul.
The echo of three
as the yarn moves through me,
rippling the sway through my sizzling skin,
leaving a smile in my face and a song in my heart.

Buonanotte fiorellino was the waltz that breathed through my mind as I spun the yarn and wrote this piece (you can see a waltzy spinning reel on my instagram. What is your favourite spinning beat?

Happy spinning!

You can find me in several social media:

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

October 2, 2021October 2, 2021

Bulky

What is your default yarn? Mine would be a 2-ply fingering, on rare occasions sport weight yarn. Today I spin way out of my comfort zone. With the slowness of a floor supported Navajo style spindle I do my best to approach a bulky yarn.

Snow shoveling pants

A while ago I wrote a review of the book Keepers of the sheep – knitting in Morocco’s High Atlas and beyond by Irene Waggener. I was intrigued by many of the the stories and patterns in the book.

Keepers of the sheep – knitting Morocco's High Atlas and beyond, by Irene Waggener with Muah Ahansali, Hussein Mardi, Muah n'Ait Tabatoot and Noura Eddylymy. Photo published with permission from the author. — The Sirwal pants from Keepers of the sheep are the focus of my bulky yarn endeavours.

Sirwal pants in Keepers of the sheep. Photo published with permission from the author. — The Sirwal pants from Keepers of the sheep are the focus of my bulky yarn endeavours.

One of the patterns that stuck to me was the Sirwal pants. A pair of knitted pants that shepherds used to knit and wear for shoveling snow among other things. As all of the patterns in the book the pattern is based on working with what you have in the form of wool, yarn, needles and body size rather than a detailed knitting instruction. I really liked the idea and think it would be a good challenge for me.

A bulky endeavour

Another challenge would be the bulky yarn that was suggested for the pants. My default yarn is fine, usually a fingering or sportweight yarn. I have started exploring spinning thicker singles on my floor supported spindles and enjoyed it very much. Spinning fat singles is very satisfying for some reason. I think it’s the letting go of perfect that is really appealing.

While I have never actually tried spinning a bulky yarn on a spinning wheel, I believe it would be too quick a tool for me. Or perhaps I just can’t let go of perfect that much. I think the spinning wheel would give the yarn too much twist and/or too uneven thickness. With the floor supported spindle I have the time to control thickness and twist and still spin up the yarn very quickly.

Floor supported spindle

So, my choice for the bulky yarn required for the Sirwal pants was my floor supported spindle. My wool choice was easy – Gunvor the black and white Gestrike sheep was the perfect candidate. A medium wool with airy undercoat and long and strong outercoat, ranging from around 10 to 20 centimeters in fiber length.

The lamb’s fleece of Gunvor the Gestrike sheep is the perfect candidate for my bulky pant yarn.

I wanted to keep the whole process as simple as possible and not use more tools than I needed, just as the knitting shepherds had done for generations. Therefore I tried to card the wool without teasing it first. After all, the locks were very airy and easy to open up. However, there were more short fibers and kemp in the wool than I wished, and I soon realized that these bothered me too much. By teasing the wool first with combs I got rid of a lot of the unwanted fibers. So I decided to keep the teasing.

Yummy hand carded rolags of Gestrike wool for my bulky yarn.

This wool is so lovely to work with. It’s open and airy, making the carding a joy. no fuss, no tangles, just a sweet carding flow. A lot of the remaining short kemp fibers, especially in the white parts of the fleece, come out in the carding and spinning (and sticks to all my clothes).

Letting go of perfect

One of the challenges (for me at least) with spinning thick yarn is to let go of perfect. It is so easy to draft a little extra just to get that fuzz out. And another little extra. This is where I need to close the door to perfectionism, open my mind and my heart to the fuzz and go on to the next section. Once I have accepted this very provoking challenge and incorporated it into my spinning it is truly liberating. I see the fuzz, acknowledge it and embrace it. It’s there and that is ok. And it will fade out in 1 the plying and 2 the knitting.

A twisted rolag

When I spin a yarn of this thickness on a floor supported spindle I make three to four serious rolls of the shaft up my thigh so that the twist travels up the whole undrafted rolag.

A light hand on the shaft allows me to roll the shaft all the way up my outer thigh to insert twist into the wool.

After having inserted twist into the whole length of the rolag I make the first arm’s length draft, letting in some of the twist that has built up in the yarn spun previously.

Then I draft and add the final twist in 3–4 sections. This way the spinning of one rolag takes less than two minutes. A quick yarn in a slow technique. Now, that’s satisfying!

Opening up the twist

I work a lot with opening up the twist here. It is a technique that I use in all my spinning but is especially useful in spinning on a floor supported spindle. The hands need to communicate through the yarn between them. For that to happen the twist must be alive in the yarn – I need to work at what I call the point of twist engagement.

With my spindle hand thumb I roll the yarn against the twist to open it up. This way the fibers get more room to move and I can draft it to the thickness and evenness I want.

The point of twist engagement is a point where there is enough twist to prevent the yarn from coming apart but not so much that the yarn can’t move. At the point of twist engagement the fibers can slide past each other. By opening up the twist – rolling the yarn against the twist – the fibers can move in the yarn and pass this information on to my hands.

For a guided tour in the point of twist engagement check out the spinning meditation video I released last week.

2-ply super bulky

I usually don’t ply on my floor supported spindles, so I plied this yarn on my spinning wheel. The resulting 2-ply yarn is just lovely – bulky, round and kind. Perfect for snow shoveling pants.

A super bulky woolen spun 2-ply Gestrike wool yarn, 6 wpi, 640 m/kg

I wrap the yarn around my wpi nostepinne and can’t really believe what I see. I’m so new to this yarn weight – both in spinning and knitting – that I didn’t think I would be able to achieve it. But I did. And it works.

My Sirwal pants are coming along just fine. I add stripe after stripe as I finish a new skein, just as described in the book. The yarn knits up very quickly and I need to spin more after just 1–2 stripes. But I do like the balance of knitting and spinning parallel.

Sirwal pants knit in my bulky Gestrike wool yarn. — Sirwal pants knit in my bulky Gestrike wool yarn and 5.5 mm needles.

I hope we get snow this year so that I can try the shoveling potential in the pants (if my daughter doesn’t get to the shovel first). I also have plans to proudly walk down to the lake with my Sirwal pants in the winter months for my daily bath.

Happy spinning!

Next weekend I will be teaching and there may not be a post.

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.