Happy New Year!

Happy Spinning! May the light shine in on all of you!

For me the year 2012 ended in a wonderful way. The postwoman brought me a package:

Black, brown and white Finull from the Finullsheep's native country Sweden! All qualities are very nice, but the camera wanted only one close up taken in the grey light we have this time of the year:

Tack, Kristin!

Finull

While waiting for Ingrid to find out about the wool she sent me, I show you a better photo of the wool I talked about in my blog post yesterday. I took staples from different parts of the fleeces, and as you can see the crimp varies a lot. Good Finull should have much crimp, and there are such staples in the fleeces. This wool is soft even as unscoured, it feels strong and nice. I'll tease and mix the different qualities, keeping the colors apart, in order to get a yarn of even quality.

Later: I have now gotten the answer to the question about what wool this is: it's Swedish Finull just like Ingrid (who sent me the wool) said. Conclusion: just like other sheep each individual Finullsheep has several types of wool in it's fleece.

If you have wool from several fleeces you can sort out the different types for different yarns and projects. If you have only one fleece you can mix the different types for a bigger project.

Blue hour and Finull

It didn't look very blue outside yesterday evening, but my camera saw what I didn't see.

More wool, this time from Swedish spinner Ingrid:

Light brown and black Finull. Together with another batch of Finull, still in Sweden, I'll have enough for a bigger project.

Why is shipping so expensive? Does anyone know?

My LYS and the Fair in Isokyrö

Yesterday was a happy day: first I went to my LYS while hubby was emptying his bank account, then we went to the 18th Century Fair in Isokyrö. It's a fair for professional crafters, and the idea is to be as natural as possible: no artificial materials, the wrappings have to be of fabric or paper, and the sellers have to dress in an old fashioned way. For a reason I have forgotten the fair tries to be 1700-ish, but that's of course very difficult. The fair was really big this year. All the fields around the old church ground had been turned into car parks and there were thousands of visitors.

But first, the LYS, Vörå Handarbetsaffär. It's a miracle. Ever since we moved to this community in 1991 I have turned to the owner, Gunnel Björk, when I need something special. "Oh just a moment", she says, "I think I have one in a drawer somewhere", and then she digs into her stash and up comes a shuttle for tatting, cards for card weaving, a back strap loom, beads, a hairpin for lace, a bobbin winder, and all the other things an experimenting textile crafter thinks she needs. The lady is now in her seventies and still in the shop almost every day.

Oh yes, she has buttons :) Yarns. Not much, but yarns of good quality.

Gunnel is a weaver, so of course there are looms in the shop, and weaving material in a room of their own. There is one more room for weaving material back to the left.

If you need a warp, just call her. She'll string the warp for you late at night after she's come home from the shop.

The last few years her daughter Birgitta has been working in the shop also, so there is hope for the future. And Birgitta's little daughter is a natural crafter, a small girl with an intuitive understanding of textile!

OK, so over to the fair in Isokyrö. Hubby and me used to sell our textiles here at the end of the 90s, and we always liked this fair very much. I always had my spinning wheel and a spindle with me.

First I saw a soldier with his head in a bush:

Then hubby and me saw soldiers with their heads in a car motor:

I wonder if they need those big knives to take care of the problem?

The place was crowded, but all of a sudden I saw a familiar little boy:

My lovely nephew sitting on a not-so-seventeenhundreds bale of straw, and my brother standing beside him! My sister in law had run off with my brother's wallet and the trolley so both brother and son felt a bit worried :) In the background you can see the church from the 14th century.

There was a blacksmith:

And a chef:

And his tasty soup:

I sat in the marquee and felt I like it very much: the fresh air, the people moving about, the not so fancy but tasty food and the not-so-seventeen-hundreds-plate, mug, spoon, napkin and food tray. I like it much better than restaurants I have been to. It's the feeling of being with people you have something in common with. The crafts, or the wild life, the events that bring us together for a couple of hours.

Yes, I bought a mug for myself, small gifts for crafty friends, and a broom for hubby so he can sweep the stairs of our house. Hrm. And I bought a back pack. This year we had time to look at the museum. There are several buildings on the ground, with lots of interesting artefacts, so I'll show you some photos form the museum.

A spinning wheel from Isokyrö:

Swifts:

Woodworking tools:

Wallpaper as they looked at the beginning of last century. The farmers didn't always have money to buy commercial wallpapers, so they used old newspapers:

The fire place was enormous, but it didn't heat the whole house. Those wallpapers were necessary to keep some of the cold out during our very cold winters.

Carpets on the floor were necessary for the same reason. They were rug or wool carpets, and in winter they covered the whole floor.

The beds were nice made up with textiles in day time. I don't know if it was appropriate to sit on this bed with it's white cotton cover, but someone has obviously done so. Cotton became common late, at the end of the 19th century, and it was expensive. Flax was the most common plant material for garments and other textiles.

And now to my own crafts. Oh yes, I have been spinning in July and August, but only about 600 grams because much of my time has gone to washing wool, teasing, and carding.

The skeins to the right are spun from the Estonian Finull I have shown in my blog here and here. I want to make an announcement:

This is the best wool I have ever spun. I have spun for 30 years, so I think that says about everything you can say about wool. Ülle, thank you once again!

The two skeins to the left are the tops I carded together with bits and pieces and spun woolen. I showed the rolags earlier: rolags.

Am I enjoying life?

The light brown Estonian Finull from Ülle at Vana-Olevi is carded:

I've said it before, and I say it again: lovely wool!

I have been spinning and even finished some yarn:

This is the Finnwool  I dyed and carded earlier, and to the right two blue-violet skeins of Cheviot.

And I've started combing Swedish Leicester:

Long, strong and lustrous. I think I'll dye the finished yarn. At least I'll spin it during Tour de Fleece.

So what do you think? Do I enjoy life? :)

Finull and Finnwool

I bought some gorgeous wool from Estonia. It's Finull from Ulles awesome sheep (see here: Vana-Olevi). Notice "gorgeous" and "awesome"? :) I don't know how to describe the wool otherwise. Look:

White, brown and black Finull, and on top of it an Ouessant sample

A closer look at the scoured brown wool:

And the raw black wool with the incredible crimp:

I have been thinking I won't scour the white wool, but will wash a sample and see how it behaves. I have never seen so clean wool before. It's winter wool! It should be felted and foul, but it's open and airy, a joy to kindly pat. It would be a shame to make it felt by washing it.

I'll start working with these wools next week. I have a few more orange Finnwool batts to card. This particular Finnwool is also of a gorgeous quality, but I'm not allowed to tell where I got it. It's rare nowadays. This is the wool I dyed some weeks ago and showed here: acid dyed Finnwool drying.

I have a plan. I'll spin the Finull and the Finnwool into yarns I can use together in a sweater. Please be patient with me, it'll take some time.

Finull and Finnwool? Yes, two different breeds from two different countries. Finull is a Swedish sheep with fine wool (that's what the name says, Fine Wool, Finull). Finnwool comes from my countries national breed, Finnsheep. The wool is fine and lustrous.

I find it very typical for our times to spin Swedish wool from Estonia in Finland. I love the thought of it.

I have finished a yarn, even if most of my time is spent on silk. I have a long time project going, ready to show next summer if all goes as planned. But here's the bobbins' ends wool yarn I plied earlier this week:

I had to empty my storage bobbins because there was no empty ones any more so I plied some of them into a 3-ply. That's why the yarn is so uneven. There are thin threads with much twist and thicker ones with less twist, spun on both spinning wheel and spindle. It'll be a nice purse.