8 things I love about spinning

How wool grease, juniper needles and the personality of hand cards make my heart sing (and write a book)

Hello, I'm Josefin, a spinner of wool and crafter of words. If you enjoy evocative writing about the little things in a big world, this space is for you. Bring your favourite tea mug and come sit beside me, I’ll be here.

I am a spinner and have been so ever since I realized it is the home and heart of my crafting. All the garments and home decor I have knit, woven or otherwise composed into a textile from my handspun yarn, have been created out of love for and a curiosity about a specific breed, process or technique. Today I'd like to share with you 8 things I love about spinning.

Slowness

Spinning is a slow business. However, slowness is for me a superpower. I love the pace with which the wool goes through my fingers. From bundles just-shorn off the sheep, through inserting air and twist I transform it into a finished yarn. In slowness I get time to understand the wool and how it wants to be spun. Preparing the wool with hand tools, spinning, and knitting a sweater would easily take 100 hours. That is time together with a natural material that makes my hands giggle and my heart sing. I'm not in it for the speed.

Closeness

The way I am intertwined with the wool with all my senses is mind boggling. I see the wool in front of me and feel it flowing between my hands as my shoulders sink. I smell the lanolin, I hear the creaking of the spinning wheel or the whirring of the spindle. I taste the joy of spinning.

Rhythm

As I spin, I watch the flow of fibers from the fiber hand and the twist from the spindle hand. I see how fiber and twist merge between my hands, forming a bridge between them.

I call this the heart of the spinning – a space where the rhythm of twist and fibers arrive, pulsate and depart, right in front of my own heart. Sometimes I swear they beat at the same pace.

Process

Every time I dig my hands into the wool, I learn how the fibers work, in movement and stillness. Step by step I transform the newly-shorn fleece, add air between the fibers, shape the mass, and spin it into yarn. Each part of the process teaches me about the characteristics and mood of the fibers. My hands are in the making, the making fills my mind.

Dance

Every wool, tool and spinner have their own dance. A slow and viscous wool, or a slippery and moody one. Cards bending to my wishes or ones that question my motifs. A new spindle skipping like a lamb, or a full one like a grown ewe; cool, calm and collected. The way my body learns the motions of the fibers before I realize it myself. The flow moves in intricate figures in all aspects of spinning, and I embrace every invitation to dance.

Whisper

The wool is my most important teacher. The ridges of my fingerprints register all that the wool whispers to me; "This is how long my fibers are. This is my strength. Feel my elasticity, sense my resistance and the way my fibers glide past each other. This is my essence. Treat me like the gift I am and spin me into my most beautiful yarn." And I listen.

Community

Even if I'm the only one in the room, I never spin alone. Spinners before me, beside me and after me all spin alongside me; the women who had to spin to put food on the table and clothes on their backs, the textile communities that are thriving still today, and the wide community of people spinning for the joy of it. Just like the flock of sheep we are together, bound by the threads we spin.

Story

A stick and a weight. Fiber, movement, and air. That is all I need to create a yarn I can clothe myself in, wrap around my loved ones and sail away into the sunset with. All the while the sheep grows itself a new coat. In every yarn I spin I sense the past 11 000 years of sheep husbandry and the story of the sheep that gave me the wool. Juniper needles entangled in the fibers, a tousled patch on the sheep's favourite napping side, bleached tips from a summer in the pastures. I spin my life into the yarn and create a garment that holds me with the story of making it.

And, as it turns out, a book.

Photos by Dan Waltin in top left corner, bottom left and right corner.

Listen to the Wool – a Why-to Guide for Joyful Spinning will be available from November 4th.

Other resources:

• Check out free and paid spinning courses on my online spinning school!

• Have a cuppa and watch joyful spinning videos.

• Read more spinning and crafting essays.