I am still at my Icelandic Textile Center residency in Blonduos. I’ve had a lot of fun researching and working with Icelandic fleece. Please see THIS earlier post for more details about Icelandic fleece and my project.
Spinning Icelandic fleece
After the sod house tapestry and the woven sample I showed in that post, I kept spinning and finished another small tapestry. The more I spun, the more I could recognize what I needed in the yarn and I’ve gotten closer to singles that I like. When starting out, I was putting very little twist in the single because that is what you’re “supposed” to do when spinning singles that are to stay singles. But for tapestry, I didn’t like it. It was far too bumpy and uneven and more twist allows me to smooth it out to make a more even single.
Icelandic lamb fleece
So I added more twist and I liked it better. And then I added too much twist and had to take some out. But that is how you find the sweet spot. I have tested spinning the tog and thel separated and also together. With lamb fleece which often has shorter tog, I can keep some of the longer fibers in the yarn which is great for tapestry. The tog is shinier and much longer and stronger and I want to use that aspect of the fleece for tapestry yarn. But some of the fleece has tog that is 10 or more inches and that is hard to spin with the thel which is around 4 inches long.
I am prepping with handcards here which adds another layer of challenge over combs (which they don’t use in Iceland). I was able to do some of it by spinning in the grease. Icelandic fleece does not have the high lanolin levels that I’ve found in fleeces from Colorado so this is a nice way to spin this fiber. I have been successful using handcards sort of like combs but I’m looking forward to trying some of this fleece with my combs when I get home.
The yarn skeins below are some of the ones I spun for the second tapestry (Iceland: Black Sand Beach). The blacks are pictured in a separate photo below. I enjoyed spinning the colors as I went along. I started with the blacks and decided that I wanted all natural colors in this fleece after adding the dyed blue you can see in the small skein below. The landscape on a cloudy day here is very gray and the values of natural colors in Icelandic fleece is wide so I was able to create the feeling of the landscape without using any dyed wool.
Handspun yarn for the beach tapestry
I also spun some 2-ply yarn. I don’t have an unending fleece supply so none of these amounts are actually enough to make anything (except tiny tapestries). But it was enough for me to understand more about the fiber and how to spin it. I was pleasantly surprised by the yarn from both of these fleeces and this week I did meet a farmer who sells Icelandic fleeces and also the owner of the other mini-mill, Uppspuni, in south Iceland and I intend to use both of their expertise in the future! (Thank you to Maja Siska for the introductions.) If I am ever to knit an Icelandic sweater, it will be from the fleece of an Icelandic sheep grown in Iceland.
2-ply yarn handspun from Icelandic fleece; Icelandic Textile Center residency of Rebecca Mezoff
The black sand beach tapestry
This tapestry was about the black sand beaches that ring this country. The image I abstracted for the tapestry was from a beach I can see from where I’m typing this, right outside the window of the house we’re staying in (see image in the header of this post).
I’ve been keeping some notes as I’ve played with the fleece and spinning. The card pictured below is the black yarn for the beach tapestry. You can appreciate the difference between the tog and thel in that photo. The tog or outer coat is on the left, the thel on the right. The tog is much longer, thicker, and shiny. The thel is much softer with a shorter staple and not as reflective.
I used both the tog and thel in the weaving. There is a band of tog hatched around the curves of the beach. It is hard to see this in the photographs, but I am hoping that eventually I’ll be able to get the light right so that you can see it in a photograph.
Spinning notes, black Icelandic fleece. The balls are tog on the left and thel on the right. They are from the same fleece.
The next images are of the tapestry in progress and finished. I brought a copper pipe loom along, replacing the steel threaded rod with nylon. The nylon bends a tiny bit, but with the rod only showing a few inches, it worked fine. The nylon is vastly lighter than the steel 12 inch rod and I’ll be using it again when traveling. It is warped four-selvedge in the Fringeless method and is the same size as the first tapestry, 2.5 x 8 inches.
The beach tapestry in progress on the copper pipe loom I brought along to Iceland.
Rebecca Mezoff, Iceland: Black Sand Beach, 2.5 x 8 inches. The beach from the inspiration is seen in the distance just to the right of the tapestry.
The beach tapestry. You can almost see the hatching with the black tog and thel in this photo… almost.
A visit to Gilhagi Farm
I was able to attend a virtual conference while here that was hosted by the Icelandic Textile Center and one of the speakers was Brynjar who owns Gilhagi Farms with his wife. A few days later we had a wonderful trip toward the interior of Iceland where we visited a geothermal area near lake Myvatn and saw a couple amazing waterfalls (Godafoss and Dettifoss). I had said to Conni that next time I was in Iceland I definitely had to visit Gilhagi Farm but I thought it was too far west for us to visit this time. After hiking to see Dettifoss, Conni mentioned that we were taking a “short detour.” Since the scenery everywhere in Iceland is magic, that seemed fine though she did not tell us where we were going. As paved road led to farm road led to driveway, I became a bit concerned about where we might actually end up. I figured she knew someone on a farm and maybe they had sheep…
But it all soon became clear as the driveway was marked with the Gilhagi Farm logo and we had made it there just before they closed for the evening. So we had a fascinating talk with Brynjar and his wife (who was wonderful and who’s name I cannot find anywhere, I’m so sorry!). They showed us the mini mill and talked about how they mix the natural colors and source the wool. All their wool comes from their region of Iceland which is clean from scrapie, the prion disease that wipes out whole flocks far too often. So they spin the yarn of their neighbors and their own flock and it is gorgeous.
This work that they do is hard but the product is incredible. They keep a small flock themselves and were lambing already due to a naughty ram. They also keep bees and one energetic dog named Kappi. You can follow the farm and maybe even visit yourself! Their website is HERE and they’re @gilhagi_farm on Instagram. They do have an online store and they sell to 5 different yarn shops in Iceland.
The photo below shows the yarn I purchased. They don’t do a lot of singles, but they had some from lamb fleece and it looks like a fantastic tapestry yarn. I’ll be testing that soon. And the knitting yarns are 2-ply and come in two weights.
Singles and 2-ply worsted yarns from Gilhagi Farm in western Iceland
Our visit to the Gilhagi Farm: Cornelia Theimer Gardella, Brynjar Por Vigfusson, Rebecca Mezoff (holding some of the farm’s beautiful yarn in a bag she has not yet let go of)
Spinning Icelandic fleece while looking out at the spot the Blanda River meets the ocean.