Icelandic wool

I am fascinated by the wonderful materials that nature provides.  I was therefore rather surprised, when  traveling recently, to discover that not everyone shares my preference.  I love to knit and crochet, so I took some wool with me, both Icelandic lopi and some of the Alpaca that I had dyed with lichen.  It surprised me that almost everyone I met, who was knitting or crocheting, was using acrylic or some other synthetic yarn in screaming bright colours.  I just don't understand why anyone would spend all that time on handiwork, and not use the best materials.  I just don't get it.  But I was polite and said nothing.  Each to his own.  But I still don't get it.

The old saying: "The grass is always greener on the other side of the river" is so true.  Very often I feel slightly envious over the abundance of material available to people who live in other, most often warmer, countries.   Eventually I stopped looking into the distance and discovered right at my feet the most wonderful materials, a wealth of medicinal and dye plants and of course the precious eiderdown and now, my latest discovery:  Icelandic wool.

It has always been there and we learn at an early age in school that it kept the nation alive through decades of misery, it has unique properties, yada, yada, yada...  And I never really gave it any thought.  I have been using it for dyeing for some time and I have always thought that I had full appreciation of it, but now I realize that I really didn't know what it was all about.  I just started an evening class about how to prepare and spin and I just  fell in love.  The teacher, who happens to be a neighbor in the allotment garden, brought raw fleece, just the way it comes off the sheep, but washed.  And we started from there.

But first a little bit about the Icelandic wool and it's unique properties (that's the yada-yada part).  The thing is that, like other primitive sheep species, Icelandic sheep have two types of hairs.  The outer coat, called "tog", is coarse and shiny, and the fibers are very long, 10-45 cm / 4-18 inches.  It is water repellent and serves to keep the inner coat dry.  The inner coat, "þel" (or thel) is only 5-10 cm / 2-4 inches long, but much finer and softer.   Traditionally the two were separated and treated quite differently to produce completely different materials.  And I had never, ever touched pure þel before I attended the class.  The reason is that the two types of hairs can only be separated by hand.  All attempts to make a machine to do that have failed.  All the Icelandic wool that is produced commercially is a combination of the two and as a consequence it is quite coarse and scratchy.  It's fine for Lopapeysa (the Icelandic sweater), but not for anything that one would like to have next to the skin.  So þel wool can not be bought in stores here, it has to be made by hand, but no one is doing that.  So I look forward to having a completely new material to work with.

Tog is combed, rather than carded, with viking combs and I haven't tried that yet.  I understand that it is always spun as a worsted, which means that the fibers are all paralell.  It is and is also a completely new material to me.  Even if it is coarse, it has a lustre that makes it perfect for embroidery thread, warp thread in weaving and for strong and water repellent outer garments.

I've been separating tog from þel and carding the þel.  It's wonderfully soft and completely different in feel from Lopi, the Icelandic wool that I've been dyeing.  I just tried my hand at spinning some and it was quite fun.  I got Abby Franquemont's book Respect the Spindle and highly recommend it.  I have along way to go, but I really, really think this will be fun.

The Thirteenth

The last day of Christmas is thirteen days after Christmas day.  We call the day "The Thirteenth" (Þrettándinn) and it is celebrated in a small way.  We have bonfires, parades with elves and trolls and all kinds of strange beings.  This is also the day to fire up the last remaining fireworks.  Our Julelads (Jólasveinar), all thirteen of them have left, one every day since Christmas day and then, when they have all left, Christmas is all over.

I remember Christmases of my childhood with fondness.  My memories are mostly all muddled together and it's hard to distinguish one Christmas from another.  But one I do remember particularly well.

My sister and I were probably around six and seven years old.  This was in the days before we had overdrafts and credit cards, when ones wages just had to stretch till the end of the month.  My parents must have very broke, because instead of the usual expensive traditional Christmas dinner, we had the very inexpensive and traditional Meat soup (Kjötsúpa).  We only got one gift from my parents that year, and although we must have had a few other gifts from uncles and aunts, this one is the only one I remember.  It was the kind of toy one would expect to find in a gas station, 4 very cheap plastic bowling pins with a metal rod through them, on a stand and one ball to knock them down.  We were a little puzzled, since we were used to receiving one gift each from our parents.  But they, probably horribly guilt ridden, seemed to be really excited by this, obviously very cheap, toy and got down on the floor and started to played with us.  And they made it exciting and fun and we played all evening.  We had so much fun, I'll never forget it.  It wasn't until years later that I realized how terribly broke they  must have been and most important of all: That the best gift that children can receive is their parents undivided attention.

I do not remember the most expensive gift they ever gave me.  Not at all.  I couldn't even guess at it.  That's not to say that I didn't receive many very nice Christmas gifts from them.  They were very good at giving us very nice things even if they never were rich.  But that cheap plastic thing is the one I remember best.  I think we need to remember sometimes that money doesn't really matter as much as we pretend it does.  Most of my pleasure these days are not expensive.  Most of them cost very little and some cost nothing at all.  This year I plan to enjoy as much as I can, all the free things in life.  I will feed the birds, gaze at the sky and look for the Northern Lights.  I'll admire the sunset, pick wild flowers, visit old friends and take long walks in the woods, along the river or on the beach.  It's going to be a year to remember.