{"id":8981,"date":"2022-12-17T08:10:13","date_gmt":"2022-12-17T07:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/waltin.se\/josefinwaltinspinner\/?p=8981"},"modified":"2022-12-17T08:22:17","modified_gmt":"2022-12-17T07:22:17","slug":"tog-and-thel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/waltin.se\/josefinwaltinspinner\/tog-and-thel\/","title":{"rendered":"Tog and \u00feel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In October I bought an Icelandic fleece from Hulda at Uppspuni mini mill<\/a> in Iceland. I decided to separate the coats \u2013 tog and \u00feel \u2013 by hand, just to see what I could learn. And I did indeed learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are a patron (or want to become one<\/a>) you can see how I separate tog and \u00feel by hand on the darker fleece in my December 2022 video postcard.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Two fleeces of Icelandic wool \u2013 one whole fleece in a lighter shade of grey and part of a darker one.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I asked Hulda to pick out a couple of ewe fleeces for me, with an interesting colour range somewhere along the grey scale. She found two beautiful fleeces, one lighter and one darker grey. I chose the lighter one and as much of the darker one that would work in a 2 kilo package. A few weeks later it landed at my doorstep \u2013 1500 grams of the lighter grey and 500 grams of the darker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tog and \u00feel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Icelandic wool has a dual coat with long and strong outercoat fibers and shorter, finer and softer undercoat fibers. Tog is Icelandic for the outercoat of Icelandic fleeces. I believe the word has the same origin as the Swedish word tagel<\/em> (horse hair). The Icelandic undercoat is called \u00feel [thel].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Separating<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Usually when I want to separate undercoat and outercoat to spin separately I use a pair of combs. But I like to work close to the wool and I thought I’d try separating the two fiber types by hand on these beautiful Icelandic fleeces. An Icelandic spinner told me that her way of separating the fiber types was by hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, this is how I separate the coats by hand:<\/p>\n\n\n\n