Mixing Things up for a Sweater
words and photos by: Johanna Carter
I always admire those who are able to spin mountains of yarn for a big project, ready to knit a wonderful sweater or cardigan. It is a satisfying feeling when you finish all that work, especially if you started with washing and combing the wool or even raising your own sheep.
Mixing spinning and knitting
The typical way to work through a larger project is to spin all the singles first and ply them in a particular order so you get the yarn even throughout the whole project. I don’t have so many bobbins, but my bigger problem is that I am quite impatient and want to get on with knitting once I have an idea. And normally, my brain is full of ideas for fibre work and the limit is the time, as I am a musician and teacher. I can’t sit at the spinning wheel for a long time if I’m not on holiday, so during the school year I mostly knit, and during the holidays I can dye, spin, use my drum carder, and do lots of fibre work. The only time I was able to produce bigger quantities of yarn before I knitted them up was during the Tour de Fleece in the two years during the pandemic, when we did not go on holiday at the beginning of July.
A highly photogenic collection of naturally dyed fibres.
I like to finish knitting one big project like a sweater or cardigan before I start the next one, or at least until I can’t carry it in my bag easily anymore, so I have an excuse to begin the next one. Sometimes it is good to have a second project on the go – I call it mindless knitting, where I don’t have to look very much – which I can keep my hands busy during Zoom or other meetings, which helps me listen.
Mixing colours and fibres
Usually I dye my yarn with plants which I collect in the woods or get from garden flowers. I also use cochineal and indigo, which I buy, to get lots of different colours. I really love the greens and blues I get from dyeing with indigo. I have lots of dyed wool, and all those colours give me inspiration for further projects.
Beautiful greens and blues dyed by the author using indigo and other natural dyes.
Blending the wool on the drum carder I can get even more shades. I like to blend with fibres like silk, alpaca, or plant fibres, and I love sari silk, to get those little bits of colour in my yarn.
Fibres of different types and colours are blended on a drum carder for elegant results.
When I have an idea for the next sweater, I start carding, and then I can begin to spin. Once I have spun enough yarn – say, for one day – I cast on and start knitting, usually top down, so I don’t have to decide too much in advance about length and width.
An idea for the author’s next sweater in the gathering stages.
When I spin on my wheel, I have to sit at home, but while spinning I can read a book or talk to others during online meetings. I also like to spin on my spindles, and that works on a walk, or a museum visit. I take them on holiday as they don’t need much space, and when I spin for a lace shawl, I don’t even need much wool either. At home there are spindles all over the place; I can spin when I am waiting for the kettle to boil, when the computer is slow, when I am cooking. Like that I can make good use of a short time and the yarn still grows.
Knitting as soon as the yarn is spun helps the author complete sweater projects in a timely manner.
I can take my knitting almost everywhere, which is why I don’t want to wait to get started until I have spun all the yarn for a whole sweater. I knit at home, on the bus or train. The only thing I have to make sure of is to be one step ahead with the yarn.
I love to knit Fair Isle sweaters. My favourite method is to use only one bobbin, which I don’t even fill, because I need smaller quantities of lots of colours. Then I wind a ply ball and ply it on itself. For that I put my thumb through the ball, so I can tension the two singles with my fingers and they don’t get tangled, as long as my thumb (or a cardboard roll or a pencil) stays in the middle. I don’t have any leftovers from plying, and it is quick when I suddenly need more yarn.
Several charming sweaters dyed, spun, and knit by the author.
I have never had problems with the yarn not being consistent enough throughout a project. I just know what yarn I want and my fingers seem to remember what to do. I am sure it is good advice to have a little card tied to the spinning wheel with a bit of the singles you are aiming for, so you can check and make sure you are spinning a consistent yarn.
Mixing breeds
There are so many different breeds, but some of my favourites are Shetland, BFL, and Jämtland – a Swedish breed. After dyeing them, I often forget what I have used, so when I do a new project it often turns out that I have used different breeds and fibres just to get the right colour. For the Fair Isle knitting I want to juggle lots of colours, which is more important to me than making a sweater out of only one breed.
Recently I made a pullover for my husband using about 12 different breeds and colours, even mixing short and long draw. For me it was a breed experiment and a way to use up lots of smaller quantities of wool I had in my stash. For that sweater I used combed top without blending.
Mixing in knitting during the spinning process is a wonderful way for a spinner to avoid being overwhelmed during a sweater project.
My feeling is that some people don’t dare to start spinning for a bigger project because they get overwhelmed by the quantity they have to spin and then all the knitting there is to do, especially when you want to spin the yarn entirely on spindles. Mixing the spinning and knitting for the same project is more interesting; you get more variety and more freedom to choose what you want to do next as long as you don’t run out of yarn. It breaks the project down into smaller, less daunting parts. The only thing you might want to plan is to have enough fibre at the start, but even that is not necessary, there is always a sheep growing more wool.
Spinning a distraction
words by Alissa Barton, fiber and yarn photos by Alissa Barton, photo of Alissa by Brad Barton, photos of sheep by Sian Tarrant
Anyone who follows my social media (see bio at end) will have noticed I spent the very early part of 2020 spinning some gorgeous purple roving. As a handspinner, I appreciate the story behind the wool, and this particular wool and this particular sheep have a fascinating story.
North Ronaldsay is a tiny, remote island off the coast of Scotland – part of a group of islands called the Orkney Islands. North Ronaldsay is the northern-most of these islands, lying farther north than the tip of Norway. The island was inhabited as early as the Iron Age, and some stone buildings from this era still stand. Nobody knows for certain how or when the sheep came to the island, but the North Ronaldsay sheep are part of a group of sheep breeds called Northern European Short-tailed Sheep. These are tiny little sheep, very primitive in their genetics – meaning they have not been bred or “improved” by mixing with other breeds to change characteristics such as meat yield or fiber quality. They stand only about 16 inches tall at the shoulder and weigh about 55 pounds or so. Each sheep produces a fleece weighing only about 2 pounds. Compare that to your average Merino fleece which can weigh upwards of 25 pounds and you can begin to see why there isn’t much North Ronaldsay wool in the market.
There are two main flocks in the world: one on North Ronaldsay and another that was moved to Orkney in the 80s. The North Ronaldsay flock is community owned, with each crofter being allowed to own so many. The flock is governed by the world’s only remaining “Sheep Court,” which originally consisted of 11 men (10 locals and a vet), but these days anyone with a stake in the flock is welcome. Only 50 people remain to inhabit the island which used to support about 500. Most of the population is older; the last student graduated and the school was shuttered years ago.
Other than their remarkable size, there is one more special thing I find fascinating about North Ronaldsay sheep. They eat only seaweed! Back in the early 1800s most of the people who lived on the island made their living harvesting seaweed and turning it into soda ash. The market for soda ash collapsed, so the decision was made to turn the islanders into farmers instead. The world’s longest dry stone wall (or sheep dyke) was built from native rock around the entire perimeter of the island – over 13 miles of wall. This wall keeps the sheep on the shore and allows the inhabitants to improve the interior of the island to better suit the raising of food crops and farm animals, including other breeds of sheep and cattle. The entire island isn’t very large, only about 2.7 square miles, so there isn’t much room for even that. The dyke keeps the sheep on the shore where their food supply is and also keeps them from getting inland and breeding with other sheep and diluting the breed. In fact, their very special diet keeps them from being able to graze on regular grass. They can get copper poisoning from the grass and die. There are very few of these sheep left in the world, with only about 600 ewes (females) still breeding. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust lists them as vulnerable.
All of this does nothing to explain my fascination with them, so here is how it began: I have a dear friend who was facing some pretty ugly medical stuff. The day before her first major surgery, I was reading through my morning news feeds while she and I were texting about the presurgical horrors she was enduring, and I stumbled upon an article advertising that the Sheep Court of North Ronaldsay Scotland was looking for a new Sheep Dyke Warden, someone who would come live on the island and repair the dry stone wall, who would be responsible for keeping the sheep on the shore and healthy. There were no real job specs given; you had to be willing to live and work in a harsh climate (wind swept, often stormy, rocky, full of birds and natural beauty) and walk miles and miles surveying, repairing, and exploring this beautiful old wall. You got to talk to the feral sheep – these sheep are actually handled very rarely, only during lambing season and when the herd is culled; otherwise, they roam the rocky, sandy shores of the island doing sheepy things. I found a picture online of the sheep (my friend is a spinner and knitter as well) and said, “You know, you could just skip all this surgery stuff and we could go do the sheep warden thing instead.” I knew full well she wouldn’t, but the fantasy was born and during her ongoing ordeal I would send her pictures of the sheep or the island, anything to divert her attention from the real situation, if only briefly.
One day, I found a shop update for one of my favorite dyers of fiber, Sheepspot from Ontario, Canada. I adore Sasha’s podcast where she talks about her quest to bring endangered sheep’s fleeces into the hands of everyday spinners and to expand everyone’s knowledge about these breeds to try to save them. Sasha had obtained a small amount of North Ronaldsay wool, which she had dyed and put in her shop after airing an episode about the breed. I ordered some! I got this lovely, violet wool that is very different from any other kind of wool I had ever spun, but with my friend facing yet another surgery, I was determined to spin it right away and see what would come to pass.
These sheep are double coated, meaning they have a soft, downy inner coat and a wiry outer coat. The inner coat keeps them warm. The outer coat wicks the water away from their skin. The outer coat is rough and not that great in handspun, and this wool still had a bit of that outer coat in the fiber. I decided I would spindle spin it on my Turkish spindles and carefully remove the outer hairs as I spun. Ha! That plan was quickly thrown out in the first 15 minutes of spinning. I decided instead I just needed to accept the fiber for what it was and enjoy the spin, not worrying about what I would do with the finished yarn just yet. It would become something.
I learned that the wool I was spinning was processed right there on North Ronaldsay in a wool mill made in Canada by Belfast Mini Mills. I had toured the little family-owned factory just months before while teaching on the Craft Cruises tour of Canada and New England. These mini mills allow for small batch processing of boutique fibers and yarns. The tour was fascinating. I highly recommend stopping by if you find yourself on Prince Edward Island, or you can virtually tour the mill factory yourself on their webpage. The Sheep Court purchased and installed a mill in the bottom floor of the old lighthouse on the island, and you can purchase finished yarns direct from that mill.
While I spun and my friend recovered, the Sheep Court was able to fill our dream position. I am beyond excited to tell you that the new Sheep Dyke Warden of North Ronaldsay Island is Sian Tarrant, a 28-year-old woman! Sian has started a fabulous blog about her adventures.
In the meantime, my 4-ounce bundle of roving became 380 yards of 2-ply fingering weight yarn. It is a wee bit rough for close to the skin wear, so socks were right out. Dreaming of teaching on a future cruise of the British Isles, I chose to knit my North Ronaldsay wool into a small poncho/shoulder cover. The virus has kept me home so far, but someday I will have a beautiful picture of me, standing on a ship, wearing this special piece. Better yet, my friend has made it through.
Alissa Barton (Knitting Fairy Original Designs) learned to knit and spin as a child and has never stopped. She discovered a love of teaching crafts in high school and has taught classes around the U.S. since 1990. She has published two books on knitting with bamboo and is currently working on her next book. You can find her on Ravelry, Facebook, Twitter, and Patreon as KnittingFairy and as TheKnittingFairy on Instagram.
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Not All Shetlands Are Double Coated
words and photos by Lynne Peachey
Recently, there has been much discussion on social networks concerning the Shetland sheep being double coated. But not all Shetlands are double coated, so spinners should be aware of the product they can expect when ordering a Shetland fleece for spinning.
Generally, in the UK the Shetland sheep in not dual coated. The fleece is very fine, of medium length staple, and with a soft handle. This type of Shetland could be considered the “classic” type.
During the latter part of the past century, breeders on the UK mainland, adhering to the Shetland Flock Book Society Standard and tradition have bred to maintain a fine-wooled, single-coated phenotype reflecting the best that Shetland had to offer.
The 1927 Standard which breeders work and show to states, “Wool – Extra fine and soft texture, longish, wavy, and well closed.” Judges look for around 10 crimps per inch when selecting a show winner.
The Shetland sheep is a primitive sheep, which means it is very hardy, surviving outside during winter when some commercial breeds would need to be housed. They also browse on various vegetation rather than depending on only lush grass. Having said that, it is believed that sheep with this fine fleece would not survive into old age on Shetland. And it is on the island of Foula (one of the Shetland isles) where this “double coated” type would be particularly found experiencing even wilder weather!
Some Shetland breeders sell their older ewes to a more southerly environment where it is not such a challenge to survive the winter.
On my visits to Shetland, I did note that some flocks bred for meat production have been progressively selected to provide a larger animal. These are still Shetland sheep but provide more meat and a larger, good single-coated fleece. I processed a beautiful large white fleece which I spun as a double knit equivalent and knitted a hip-length aran jumper. This fleece weighed about 3k, whereas the general Shetland on the mainland may yield about 2k.
Pure-bred Shetland sheep tend to shed their fleece in spring (sometimes starting as early as February!). The growth of new fleece can cause a rise or break, and where this is present the fleece can be plucked or rooed by hand. This process does not hurt the sheep, and in fact some of the older ones enjoy the process as we would with a spa treatment! The timing of this can be different in each individual sheep. Rooed fleece can be amongst the softest because the fibres have no harsh cut ends as occurs with a sheared fleece, and since it is not shorn, there are no second cuts!
For more information and pictures about the different types of Shetland fleeces, see Shetland Fleece Types on the North American Shetland Sheepbreeders Association website.
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April Vlog with Jacey and Jillian
On April 24, Jacey Faulkner and Jillian Moreno hosted another quarterly PLY vlog, with a live virtual chat with spinners from all over. If you missed it (or want to watch it again), you can catch up with it on YouTube. In this video, Jacey and Jillian share their favorite parts of the Spring 2021 Double-Coated issue, including the indie businesses that provided fiber or tools for the issue. Check out the behind-the-scenes information that Jacey talks about with the progression of one of the illustrations in the issue; you’ll get a good laugh at the earlier versions! Also, Jacey explains why the issue’s cover looks different than expected and originally presented. Jacey and Jillian also each spin on a Daedalus Sparrow, which is a really fun e-spinner. And Jacey shares tips for teaching kids how to spin, using her son as an example. Finally, get a sneak peek of the upcoming Summer Electric issue, which comes out at the beginning of June.
Links mentioned in this quarter’s video
Fiber
Mossy Springs Ranch
Spotted Sheep Farm
Woodhalla Tunis
Cunnington Farms
Uppsuni Mini Mill
Icelandic Highland Ewe
SaltMarch Ranch
Lofoten Wool
Odd Steinar Granheim
Beersheba Farm
Hidaway Farm
Enno Farm
Thistledown Flock
Aerie Farm East
Tools
Camaj Fiber Arts
Cynthia Wood Spinner
Clemes and Clemes
Wheels we used
SpinOlution Firefly
Schacht Matchless
Majacraft Aura
The Spinning Loft
Raw fleece in 4oz portions
Daedalus Spinning Wheels
We spun on the Sparrow
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PLY Magazine believes that Black lives matter, as well as LBGTQI+ lives. Those most vulnerable and persecuted in our communities deserve our love and support. Please be good to each other.
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