Rhythm and wool

On coping with illness through the process of making

Hello, I'm Josefin, a spinner of wool and crafter of words. In this space I practice being brave with my words to mold them into beauty. 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.

Spinning and other crafts help me cope with pain.

Listen to a narrated version of the essay in the video below.

I sit by the spinning wheel, carding. A myriad of angled metal teeth rattle against each other as they pull the fibers apart, stretching them across the prickled pads. A rhythm starts to settle – three carding strokes before I land the wool on the top of one card like a mattress, and then another three strokes. I dance the wool back and forth once more before I roll the rectangle into a rolag. As if it were a baby bird I hold the wool cylinder into the light to inspect it – a perfectly round shape with evenly distributed fibers.

I stretch into my basket for another handful of opened wool and dress the bottom card again.

The air in the room presses against my skin, my skull penetrates my brain like the tightening of braces. How can the air I breathe feel so obtrusive? I move slowly not to disturb the monster, not to rock the world into that dreaded pain and entrapment.

I woke up the night before with a pain I recognized immediately, that vise-like pressure I can't run away from but must face head-first, literally. I dozed off and checked the sensation every time I half-stirred, wondering if it was still there or if I was imagining it. But as I swung my first leg out of bed in the morning, I knew it was real, and would be for several days. I know by now how it works. I walked down the stairs, holding back my natural stride to soften the descent, and called in sick. My husband got up a while later, raising an eyebrow and pointing to his head, asking silently if I was in pain, and I replied with a slow-motion nod. He can read my episodes nearly as well as I can by now. When we go out walking hand in hand, he can feel it in the way I pull back in the descents.

I card in groups – one rolag for each of the seven hooks on the flyer on the spinning wheel, and three rounds. Twenty-one shapes of air-blended wool stacked in log cabin layers. I set the wheel in motion with my hand and keep it moving with my bare feet on the pedals. Six treadles to charge the rolag with twist, stretching my arm to allow the twist to consume the rolag while I count to another twelve treadles to add twist, then rolling the fresh yarn through the eye of the orifice. For every repeat a pattern is defined – seven peaks creating a perfect sinus wave on the bobbin.

This is what I can do when my body decides to fall into an episode, when it fails to trust my ability to keep a balanced lifestyle. The window is small, it appears.

When the air bruises my skin by its sudden weightiness, even through the protective layers of wool I wear, when the sound of paper bags and kitchen clatter pierce my ear drums, when sunlight cuts through my eyes and when the smell of perfume pushes me back in my step like a turtle into its shell, I surrender and turn my senses inward.

I call it my self-regulatory stress indicator. It forces me to slow down while I catch up on my mistreated energy levels. I cope with wool in my hands, with my hands in the making. The feeling of fibers against my skin, the choreography in mind and body are what I can muster when I grasp for words that escape me, when my body moves in a restrained pattern, when I lower the pitch of my voice not to disturb the peace. Slowly, evenly, held back. Spinning becomes my sanctuary even more than usual.

When I have been spinning for a while, I start questioning my judgement again. Am I making this up? I mean, I spin and don't feel much of the pain. Then I rise and know that it's real. The vise tightens and I walk as through syrup. I go back to my corner of softness and grab another rolag.

With the prepared wool all spun up, I stop the wheel and walk down to the dock, controlling every roll of my feet down the slope. I see the wet footprints on the dock boards and realize I'm off by half an hour‚ my bathing friends have already been there while my memory has gone fuzzy. I glide into the eight-degree water with only the lake as my company, close my eyes and breathe. Handling the cold mass against my skin shifts my focus from the pain and the pressure. Rocked by the waves I compose the last sentences of my essay.

Back home the pain returns, as I knew it would. I finish both yarn and writing and feel genuinely grateful for their generosity in offering space for joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. And migraines.

Handspun yarn from Hanna the Gestrike sheep.

My book Listen to the Wool will be published in November 2025.