Last post I spent some time musing on how to make good use of Helsinge fleece and mentioned that I had come across someone who chose to add a mere 4% of that fiber into a yarn. I was really curious about her thoughts, and she agreed to tell me how she developed her Driftwood Yarn. Meet Anita Grahn from Uppsala, Sweden. Anita is another of the very special people I’ve met in the course of writing my book, and in addition to being a masterful knitter and knitwear designer, is a designer of yarn. In her Etsy Shop, Anita Yarn you will find a very carefully curated collection of yarns she has created, hand-picked fleece, some of her pattens, stitch markers, project bags and kits for socks and mittens.
Anita is wearing her Snowdrops Shawl available on Ravelry, knit with her own Selma yarn.
Anita has made some unusual and interesting blends by thinking carefully about the characteristics and behavior of each of the fibers she includes in her yarn. The one that interested me the most is called Driftwood. It’s a great name as the colors have the variegated and subtle shading that you find on wood that has been pummeled by ocean waves. In particular, this one caught my attention because of the addition of Helsinge to 3 very soft fibers, but at only 4% of the total. I asked her about it because I wanted to understand how she thought about the process of making the yarn and how she decided upon its components.
Here is some of what Anita had to say about making this yarn. First, she wanted softness, and light brown with a touch of grey. She also wanted to include angora in the mix (she has her own angora bunnies). She only included angora for 7% of the mix, but that small amount really makes a difference.
The yarn should be good for a soft sweater but still have some character. So, beginning with the wools, the largest component (67%) is Värmland lambswool. This is a small, double-coated woodland sheep found in various colors and with fibers that can range from fine to coarse. In this case, Anita was specifically selecting fleece not only for their color but for their softness.
Another 22% of the fiber came from Finull (Swedish finewool). The actual fibers of Finull are thin and fine, and range from crimpy to wavy. There can be a range of color, but here the white wool was chosen to “tone down” the color as well as for its softness. Finull is a good “modifier” for other breeds because its lush character can really change the feel of a yarn and overcome the rustic “scratch” of some of the other breeds.
And here is the 4%. On its own, I find Helsinge to be way too rough as a knitting wool. In this case, Anita is friends with a woman who has 5 ewes, and has taken care of the wool from these sheep for several years and says about them: “I have gotten to know the wool of each of [the sheep] well. I know how it shifts from fall shearing to spring shearing, and I know the slight variations between two mother and daughter ewes. In this small flock, there is the full range of what Helsinge wool can be; it can be coarse, hard wearing, soft, straight, curly, black, grey, brown, white, full of underwool, or not.” Anita chose the fleece from the sheep Saga to the mix because it gave character to the yarn.
And that’s it. Character. In the yarn you can see the black and white fibers that are coarser than the others, and they tend to “escape” from the core to add a little halo. The difference between this and the yarns that have significantly more of any of the rustic breeds is not just character, but a complete shift in what that yarn is designed to do. This is why I think this yarn has its own special magic — a pinch of this for softness, a dash of that for strength, stir in some color. And this is precisely why I’m so obsessed with these sheep. Just a small amount — 4% — turns a soft, pretty, very nice yarn, into a soft, pretty, very nice yarn with character. It is unique. It is special. It is quintessential Anita Yarn.