We are back to my favorite time of year when the lake is smooth as glass and the leaves are dozens of shades of yellow, orange and red. I should be calm looking out on all of this beauty, but instead, none of my knitting projects are going well, and my “time out” bag is now overflowing. Bruce and I have a solution when we find ourselves in this kind of unsettled (grumpy) mood…we clean floors. Our wood floors now sparkle, and all the carpets are free of cat fur and stray bits of yarn and fleece. Time to go back to the time out bag and decide to wrestle a project into submission.
What started all of this was the decision to do a “yarn tasting” of some of the local offerings I’ve written about in the past year…yarns from Burrows Farm and from Windover Farm and Mill.
I had two skeins — one mulberry colored and one blue — from Erika Burrows Gotland sheep that I purchased last November. I had in mind a hat — a beret in fact, that might blend those two colors together. Since the pattern I was using forms wedges from short rows, the blending was not what I’d hoped for, but I kept going with it, sewed up the seam, and popped it into my washer with hot water to felt it to the right size.
Gotland is supposed to felt well, but that wasn’t my experience on the first go. I gave it a second wash and then threw it into the dryer since the hat was still huge (and I do have a big head, but not that big!). It still is too big. I now have two choices — either round three in the washer, or cut out a wedge that will leave the band the circumference of my head. This will leave me with a more prominent seam, but that might be ok (I guess I’ll try round 3 in the washer first). You can see why the beret is currently located in time out. When I figure out what to do, I’ll photograph the hat, but right now it is in the “soggy lump” state and quite unattrative.
But I wanted to talk about the yarn and how it knitted up. I have to say I wasn’t all that pleased with the yarn. It’s not the fault of the fiber, but of the way it was spun.
I have found with many small mills that flaws or uneven quality is way more frequent than from the larger commercial mills (not a big surprise). I found, for example, that the Swedish mill Yarns and Barns produced some skeins with periodic breaks in one of the plies, leading to yarn breaks in the middle of the knitting. The yarn was already quite rustic, so I had it in mind to be prepared to work around the issue. Yarns and Barns features yarns from Jämtland sheep; a specialized breed developed both for fleece and wool. I wrote about them in 2019 here.
The breaks in the Jämtland yarn were very regularly spaced in the skein, which made planning easy. In the Gotland yarn, however, there were several flaws, and they were interspersed randomly in the skein. Erika’s yarn (blue) as well as the green were both spun at Windover Farm and Mill. I would not have been able to use this yarn for something like a sweater, where a thin spot or looseness in the plies would have shown up. In a felted garment, however, these issues blended in, and after felting were essentially invisible. You can see in the photos to the left just what I’m talking about. The upper left shows a very tightly spun bit that wasn’t incorporated into the ply, and the others show spots where the singles weren’t spun evenly, leaving loose spots.
To be completely honest, while I was a little unhappy with the production from Windover, I would still buy and use their yarn for some kinds of projects. I’m working on another hat using the above green and a natural colored skein. Knowing ahead of time from winding the ball that there are some spots that need to be cut out of the yarn, I expect to produce a nice, finished garment. It won’t substantially reduce the amount of yarn I have to work with, and the yarn itself has a lovely hand. Sometimes it’s just worth fiddling with the yarn a little bit to get the result you want. Stay tuned!
Meanwhile…. in the long-term project bag
I continue to obsess over some of the fragments I documented from museums in Sweden, and in particular those from the Gotland Museum. I really love this simple chevron design that is often referred to as flying birds. I’m currently using it on more than one garment that I’m thinking about for my planned book with Katarina Segerbrand; a baby sweater, a hat band, and a jacket. The idea for the jacket is to do a tone on tone, so imagine the drawing above is for a black jacket that zips from collar to hem. The design appears only on the stand-up collar and on the sleeve cuffs and also is in black. I want to use some kind of metallic so that the contrast is subtle and makes you look twice. The problem so far is that most of the metallics around seem to be discontinued, or if not, aren’t sufficiently shiny to create the level of contrast I’m after.
I went to a yarn store this weekend where Bruce helped me to identify yarn for the main color. Rather than going for straight black he was pulling out dark charcoals and some that were slightly variegated to see if we could get better contrast. I came home with 4 or 5 skeins of the main color and 3 metallics to add to the small number I’d already collected. The first trial swatch is above. This is a worsted weight superwash wool paired with two strands held together of a metallic called Lincatex Gold Rush (distributed by Plymouth Yarns). As you can see from the photo above, there isn’t sufficient contrast between the main yarn and the metallic. Part of the issue is that the main yarn is really shiny, which I hadn’t figured into my considerations for yarn choices. The other thing that this swatch did for me was to move me toward a yarn with more heft. I think this jacket needs a bulky yarn to fulfill my idea.
The next swatch was Rowan Brushed Fleece (merino and alpaca) that has an amazing hand. It’s actually quite light weight, so even though I’m really drawn to it, I’m not sure it’s the right yarn for a jacket. The two glitter yarns are Sesia Elegant (left photo the lower chevron) and Retro-Glam. Of the metallics I’ve tried so far, the Sesia Elegant provides the greatest contrast, but of course is discontinued. The Retro-Glam is a Chinese yarn that is distributed under several different names. I think I now have 5 skeins of it, having been fooled by the different packaging. And, it sinks right into the background. I will be testing these on the 3 remaining skeins of main color choices, and I still have a couple more metallics to go, but so far I’m just not loving this in any of its iterations.
It could be that this chevron design element needs to make a clear statement. Maybe I need to go bold and head away from the metallics. That would solve one problem for sure — working with several strands of the contrast yarn tends to blur the edges of the stitches and really soften the outline. It’s pretty evident if you look closely at swatch #1 where the strands twist around each other. It’s difficult to keep all of the strands working in the same direction without crossing each other, and that results in the shine looking very uneven. I think it would be pretty frustrating to have to so carefully manipulate the contrasting yarn, and might be just too much to have to control the stitches so closely. Knitting is supposed to be fun. There has to be a solution (probably nothing I’ve thought of yet), so I’ll keep swatching.
So, channel calm and enjoy the fall. I’m thinking of apple cider (and apple cider doughnuts). As the evenings get colder, I sometimes wish we had a fireplace, but since the cats have decided it’s time to sit on laps again, I’ll certainly be able to make do in the cozy department. Cheers!
Whilst it is painful to read this review, Sara is right, there are inconsistencies in the yarn and, yes, these inconsistencies are more likely to occur in yarns spun by small mills. With that being said, I would like to provide some context for this and hopefully, balance the negative perceptions of small mills, that I fear you may have developed, after reading Sara’s review.
Firstly, small mills provide a service to small fiber farmers that is not available from larger mills . The clip of many small producers does not meet the minimum quantities required to run larger equipment. Often the fiber is ‘pooled’, and the producer has no control over the yarn they receive. Our scaled-down machinery allows us to provide a much more flexible and customized service to our customers, spinning individual fleeces, if requested.
Whilst we strive for perfection, the reality is, it is inherently more challenging to spin consistently on our less robust machinery. If you are looking for a perfectly spun yarn, you may well find it spun by a small mill, if the spinning gods were smiling that day! but, it may be better to visit your local store and buy commercial yarn. However, if you are prepared to work with the occasional imperfection, you will discover myriad single breed yarns along with a wonderful array of creative custom blends, spun by small mills. You will find yarn that is ‘alive’, with as many textural and behavioral differences as there are colors of the ubiquitous imported merino that has overtaken our sheep and wool festivals. So take your imagination and your fingers on an adventure, explore and create something that is uniquely yours.
Clare, I agree with everything you have said. I’m still working with your yarn and am enjoying the skeins I’m working with right now. In particular, I love your color sense. The color I’m working with is sort of an apple green, only better. I don’t see it on your site at the moment, so that means it has all been sold (good news). I absolutely do encourage knitters reading this to be adventurous with their yarn choices and try lots of different yarns, particularly from mills that do custom blends and feature unique breeds (not just your everyday merino).