It’s hard to know where to start with everything we saw, and everyone we met on my recent research trip to Sweden.  Everyone was helpful and kind, and so many people made such a big effort to provide me with information for my book.  This post (Special People/Places) will be a recurring one over the next weeks as I try to recount and share some of these experiences.  As it turns out, they are going to occur out of order from the trip timeline, just because my notes are in a jumbled mess at the moment, and I’m starting with the ones on top.

Caroline Henkelius and Zäta Spinneri  (Skaraborg, Sweden)

Caroline is an artist, a superb photographer, knitter, and entrepreneur.  She appears to be one of the most calm and serene people you could possibly meet, but behind that, it seems to me that she must be running a mile a minute to accomplish everything she has going on. 

She has a nearly daily blog devoted to fiber and lifestyle, her spinnery, Höner och Eir (her online shop), and a family.  She also is living a in a manner that endeavors to be sustainable and low impact on the planet. Her book, Hönshuset features gorgeous photos of her chickens and their eggs, and much more. I will be slowly trying to translate it over the next months to tell you more about Caroline and her approach to life. What I can tell you right now is that she is the kind of open, warm, and honest person you would immediately want as a friend.  She also is living a in a manner that endeavors to be sustainable and low impact on the planet. Her book, Hönshuset features gorgeous photos of her chickens and their eggs, and much more. I will be slowly trying to translate it over the next months to tell you more about Caroline and her approach to life. What I can tell you right now is that she is the kind of open, warm, and honest person you would immediately want as a friend.

Interestingly, she is one of several people I talked with in Sweden who began their fiber careers due to allergies or dissatisfaction with commercially available products.  Caroline has delicate skin that reacted badly to chemicals of many types, and actually found that she needed to wear wool underwear to avoid certain allergy issues.  But just saying “wool” is not enough.  She actually has an allergy to the spin oil that most manufacturers use, and consequently, her own yarn uses none, and she relies solely on the natural lanolin from the sheep to lubricate the wool during processing and spinning.

The dream she and her husband Knut had to buy a small spinning mill and produce a line of 100% Swedish wools came true recently, but not without difficulties.  The machinery was uncooperative, and she had to develop a very labor-intensive process of hand-feeding the fleece into the carders to avoid the use of spin oil. This actually makes for a wonderfully unique blend, with random color and subtle variation that makes the finished product completely special. The wool also is subtly colored with eco-friendly dyes.

In fact, this business almost didn’t happen. With yet another of the machines having issues, she and Knut were ready to throw in the towel. She did, however, put up her first run of un-spun fiber online to see what would happen. Called nutiden, it almost immediately sold out; just what they needed to persuade them to keep going. And it happened with the next run as well. Together with her Patreon site, she and Knut now are moving forward.

Caroline calls her product “pre-yarn.”  That is to say that the cakes of fiber are not put through a final spinning and plying process, but are un-spun, much like the Icelandic Plöutulopi. That makes it a little challenging to work with, but it’s worth the effort.  The swatch I made has some thick and thin spots, and was a bit slow to knit up since I used only 1 strand (Caroline was knitting with 4 strands when we met, and that was going much more quickly).  I really like the feel of the swatch with 1 strand.  The variation in stitches was due to the strand coming apart a couple of times because I didn’t handle it carefully enough, and it had to be spliced back together.

After blocking, the fabric retains much of its fibery halo, and softens significantly with the addition of a little wool wash. It also softens as you work it through your hands. Be aware that Swedish wool has a little bit of a “bite” initially (it resembles Shetland wool in that way). It can be scratchy or rough before it’s worked, but my observation so far is that the texture changes quickly with blocking, and only improves with wearing. It appears to have good softness while remaining very durable. I have some questions about its wear and abrasion resistance…time will tell.

None of the Swedish wools I’ve test knitted are inexpensive, but all of them are coming from small mills where there is considerable labor involved, and the quality of the production is extremely high. Comparing them to more commercial yarns isn’t very productive. With a few exceptions, the run of fiber you see is not repeatable, so if you have a project in mind, get all that you need at once. You won’t see exactly the same thing again. In my opinion, that also makes the fiber/yarn special.

I’d liken knitting with Zäta fiber to handling a baby bird.  You have to slow down, pay attention, and handle gently.