Yarn that's Certified Animal Welfare Approved by A Greener World

     A Greener World (AGW) has a directory of products that are Certified Animal Welfare Approved, certified by them.  According to their site, "It is the only label in the U.S. to require audited, high-welfare production, transport and slaughter practices."  They put an emphasis on animals being on pasture or range their entire lives.
     The categories in the directory include fibre for handspinning into yarn.  The directory allows you to search by proximity, if local fibre matters to you, or you can search the entire thing.  The listings I saw only referred to fibre or wool, they didn't specify forms such as yarn or roving.  I believe only one offered online shopping.  It sells yarn.  The rest provided a physical address.  Presumably you could write to to inquire about mail order, though you're probably meant to go to their farm gate to shop.
     If you know of a fibre farmer whose work meets the criteria, and who isn't certified and in the directory already, you can suggest her name to AGW here.  AGW also has other categories of vendors, such as farmers' markets.
     AGW's standards for sheep are here.  Mulesing is prohibited, and "The primary methods of preventing parasite infestations must be pasture management or rotation and bedding management and removal."  The standards prohibit tail docking, dehorning, disbudding, and ear marking by cutting or notching.  They prohibit any trap but a live trap for predators, with lethal control of predators as a last resort.  They prohibit the use of hot prods or electric shocks.  (I don't think this applies to electric fences.)
     I think the standards mean a flock of wethers is out: "Ram lambs may only be castrated when uncontrolled breeding cannot be prevented by any other management."  From what I've heard, ram lambs are often sent to slaughter while ewe lambs are kept for breeding.  I've also heard that traditionally wethers' wool was considered prized, as the wool is less pungent than rams' wool and in better condition than ewes' wool.  Ewes go through stress from lambing and their wool shows the results of that stress.  The one exception to the traditional preference for wethers' wool that I've read about was where ram's wool traditionally was kept for a certain purpose, I can't remember what, for some reason such as durability, but again I can't remember what.  I think that was in a Nordic country and might have been for nalbinding or rya rugs.  Anyway.  Notwithstanding traditional practices regarding wool production, and notwithstanding that a ram might rather be a wether than lunch, I guess AGW considers castration of rams something to be avoided.
     This bit was interesting: "14.0.6 Animals must not be displayed or offered for sale or transfer at farmers markets, swap meets or similar venues.  Note: Delivery or exchange of animals at a farmers market or similar venue when the sale or transfer has been pre-arranged may be acceptable."  Never would have occurred to me that anyone would try to sell a sheep at a farmers' market.  I have heard of people arranging for delivery of fibre animals in odd locations.

The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel. - Proverbs 12:10 NIV

Foreign Parcel

I bought a copy of Fenny Nijman's Egyptisch Vlechten from the Netherlands.  It's a bit of a splurge, buying a book in Dutch, which I can't read, but it has pictures of finished objects and historical pieces in språng.

I tried making a pullover in språng.  The finished chest size came out at 76 inches unexpectedly, nothing like the small gauge swatch I made because it's harder to beat down a row on a wide warp and the rows are looser.  The piece looks better thrown across the back of a chair than it does on me.  At least I tried out false circular warp.

I made some stitch markers using fragrant beads I made from rose petals.  Here they are on my sweater.

rose petal beads

The Simple, Complicated, and Complex

The rate at which I do fibre arts projects, it can vary.

I'll stall and drop momentum until I can get help or get in that useful state where desire for the finished object exceeds the reluctance to face the technical problem.  It is usually a technical problem, like getting gauge or sourcing materials.

Simple and small or weird and complex with original stuff to figure out, somehow with those I'll move along at a good constant clip.  I've made quite a few babies happy this year with Norwegian Sweet Baby caps.  I tried weaving overshot and found it as easy as promised.  My experiments in the technique of språng were diverting.  Unfortunately they are the sort of projects that don't get me moving directly toward my goals.  If velocity matters, value matters too.  I want finished objects for me.  Actual wearable clothing, not accessories, for me, out of local traceable materials that are naturally coloured.  Anything else is practice.

What I want is complicated, by which I mean complicated to achieve.  It means a narrow choice of materials, long-term projects, and realization of a specific aesthetic and fit.

I have begun a sweater for me, in natural grey Romney commercial aran yarn from the Salt Spring Island Wool Co.  I picked Alice Starmore and Anne Matheson's Cullercoats, a cabled sweater pattern published in the early 80s.  The cables and border designs are attractive, the lines are dated.  I mentioned the pattern on this blog a few years ago, writing, "I don't know if I have the high level of understanding and stern degree of determination I would need in order to alter it to suit my taste."  

I've written the modifications, I've gotten gauge, and I've started a sleeve.

Norwegian Sweet Baby cap, swatch for sweater

SSI Wool Co.'s sheep pasture with Romneys

Paddington Knits

Was reading a old English children's book full of dry humour, Michael Bond's More about Paddington:

Paddington's convalescence had been a difficult time for the Browns.  While he had remained in bed it had been bad enough, because he kept getting grape-pips all over the sheets.  But if anything, matters had got worse once he was up and about.  He wasn't very good at "doing nothing" and it had become a full time occupation keeping him amused and out of trouble.  He had even had several goes at knitting something–no one ever quite knew what–but he'd got in such a tangle with the wool, and it had become so sticky with marmalade, that in the end they had to throw it away.   

Wild Color

Happy longest day of the year!  I am at the 37th parallel; I wasn't able to manage a trip home to the 49th parallel where the longest day really is long, but I like to mark the occasion.

I finished reading Jenny Dean's Wild Color: The Complete Guide to Making and Using Natural Dyes.  Back at Christmas, around the shortest day of the year, I read three quarters of the way through a borrowed copy and then had return it.  So now I've finished up.

I hope to use Dean's instructions for madder and for woad sometime.

The book has good photographs of dye plants.  I should spend some time memorizing the names and corresponding leaves for hawthorn, blackthorn, buckthorn, sumac, dock, elderberry, rowan, and tansy.  Not that I want to dye with them.  I just never know when I'll be out for a walk with family members who are given to starting brisk games of "name that plant."  I can never remember if it's tansy or yarrow.

The book was originally published in the United Kingdom.*  With all the plants the author discusses, many are familiar to me because I'm from Vancouver Island, Canada, a place with a similar climate and a landscape shaped by English and Scottish settlers in the 19th and 20th centuries.


*I had to buy a version revised for the U.S. market so its title is missing the 'u' in colour.

Carol James on the Question, Why Do Språng

http://youtu.be/HTmePKnVhxw

Not only did I get to attend Carol James' presentation on språng recently, I got to talk to her one-on-one.  Here she is answering my question, why do språng.

Carol has spent a lot of time doing språng, trying variations, looking at historical pieces, talking to experts, and teaching students.  Her answers, her reasons why språng is worth time and effort, are even more full and apt than I thought when I was recording and paying half a mind to the camera.

I hope you will watch the video but if you prefer to read the list of benefits in brief they are, if I may paraphrase: språng's enduring nature, elasticity, variety of possible patterns, variety in possible garment shaping (shawls, mittens, hats, socks), beauty, suitability for clothing, adaptability, and efficiency where you get two rows for every one you make.

Carol's book, Sprang Unsprung, is one of the few how-to books for språng that are in print, in English, readily obtainable, and affordable.  The book contains patterns, with directions for what yarn to use, and how long and wide to make the warp to get hats and things.  She has an article on språng in the Summer 2013 issue of Spin•Off magazine.

She refers in the video to the Braddock sash and the Tonto shirt.

Carol James' Replica Braddock Sash

I had the pleasure of meeting Carol James, språng artist, teacher, and author of Sprang Unsprung.  She gave a public talk and displayed many of her finished objects.

If you read the paper she presented to the Textile Society of America in September, 2012, "Re-creating Military Sashes: Reviving the Sprang Technique," http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1697&context=tsaconf, you will get some of the same content as the presentation I attended.  There is some information in the paper about how the yarn was traditionally spun, on spindles and not plied.

I got to see her replica of the Braddock sash.*  The full-scale replica is enormous and done in very fine silk.  Laid out, it took up the top of an entire banquet-style folding table.

I liked sitting at an angle opposite the window and seeing the way the light struck the surface of the sash because I could really see the difference between the cloth on one side of the meeting line compared to the other.  Even though the yarn was all dyed evenly in madder and over-dyed with cochineal, the difference in cloth structure caused one part to look darker than the other.  The sash was worked in one piece in a circular warp, so all of the interlinking on one side of the meeting line, that is, one half of the sash, had small twists of threads all over its surface twisted in the Z (clockwise) direction and the other was twisted in mirror image.  That's why the light struck them differently.

There were patterns of holes, including some in the shapes of identical men standing in a row and some in the shapes of small triangles.

You can read about the original sash here on the Mount Vernon site.  The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association now has Carol James' replica sash in their collection as well.

There was a fair amount of collaboration that went into the project.  She had friends (and I think I remember family as well) assist her with warping and they must have borne her a lot of good will, as she said it took five hours to complete that step.  She advocates seeking grant funding for fibre arts work.  It was interesting to hear her speak of the Association's position on copyright, the limited license they gave her, and the conditions under which she got access to the sash and by extension the information about thread size, pattern design and placement, dimensions, dye shade, and so on.  We were asked not to take photographs of the sash because the Association has copyright.  To hold something like that in a collection is certainly valuable, and so is access.



*The original sash had the distinction of being owned by George Washington, the first president of the United States.  I gather that one of the reasons people regarded Washington highly was his military leadership as commander of the Continental Army during the American revolution.  Before that, he was a member of the British forces in the French and Indian War, where General Braddock gave him the military sash and the command that went with it.

Shuttle-craft Book of American Hand-weaving

Finally, I have gotten around to reading through to the end of Mary Meigs Atwater's The Shuttle-craft Book of American Hand-weaving.

There is a lot in this classic little book.  Some of the details of the techniques are beyond me, and I expect to re-read this book at a later date.

Some techniques I don't expect to ever pursue because I dislike the products and suspect that the processes would irritate me as well, but it's good to have a passing familiarity with them.  Specifically, I do not share the author's enthusiasm for coverlets.  "A beginner's first weaving should, I think, be in four-harness overshot.  The thing is surprisingly simple and effective, and a first piece will be an exciting adventure, like seeing a little flower garden spring into blossom under one's fingers." (p. 125)  I do bow to her experience and am prepared to believe that she finds much of interest there.

The author throws out strong opinions and advice.  I appreciate that she backs these up with reasons, so that I can see what criteria she used to reach her conclusions.

As a beginning weaver I can say that it's good to read a book from someone intent on conveying a specific tradition.  She draws on her study of the craft, her experience, and her association with other weavers, and lays out what was done historically and what is worth pursuing.

The book is also helpful to me because it associates different yarns with the types of weaving most suitable for them.  This information is absent from the book of patterns I have.

That Page in the Luttrell Psalter and a Few Others Like It

Go to the British Library's site for images online, imagesonline.bl.uk, search for filename 071982, and you will see the page in the Luttrell Psalter that shows a woman spinning yarn with a spinning wheel.  The psalter is from the fourteenth century.

A black and white detail of this image is commonly included in books about handspinning to illustrate the earliest example of a spinning wheel in Europe.

The psalter is in colour; the yarn is red.  The wheel is turned by hand and the yarn spun off the tip of a spindle driven by the wheel, as with a modern great wheel.  The base is very level, more like wheels from Asia than great wheels now.

There is a detail that gives you a closer view, if you search for 003937.

You can find a similar fourteenth century spinning wheel and handspinner shown in the Smithfield Decretals, filename 023698 and another wheel at 065458.

You may recognize the picture from De claris mulieribus, 061928.  Handspinning books include it because it shows a distaff and spindle, hand cards, and wool combs in use in the fifteenth century.

If you like cats, filename stowe_ms_17_f034r from a fourteenth century Book of Hours is a lot of fun: the cat has caught a spindle in midair.  The free-standing distaff is worth seeing as well, it's quite tall and appears carved at the base.

In the Luttrell Psalter there is an illustration of a woman feeding a hen and chicks while holding her distaff and spindle under her arm.  In the database it is filename 071921 (full page) and 057655 (detail).

The same manuscript has an illustration of a woman holding a distaff over her head to strike the man at her feet.  You can find it under 071862.  On the page, the accompanying written verses* are from Psalm 31 in the Vulgate, and their content has nothing to do with the illustrations.

Sarah uses a distaff to beat Hagar over the head in the Egerton Genesis Picture Book, filename c13160-09.  In Smithfield Decretals a woman uses her distaff to beat Reynard the Fox, 024291.

The database has a number of other images for weaving, spinning, and dyeing from different time periods and places.  And, of general interest there are images of manuscripts, drawings, paintings, sculpture, carvings, pottery, mosaics, weaponry, coins, jewellery, silver, and textiles.  The images don't just originate with British collections, either, I saw some Iron Age objects marked as being from Museum Hallstatt.


*I find old manuscripts difficult to read so I took what I could decipher, ran it through an online translator, then went looking for something like it in an online concordance.  Here's what I found, verses 4 through most of 6.  Enjoy, if you like Latin.
Quoniam die ac nocte gravata est
super me manus tua conversus
sum in aerumna mea; dum configitur
mihi; spina [diapsalma]
Delictum meum cognitum tibi; feci
et iniustitiam meam non abscondi
Dixi confitebor adversus me
iniustitiam meam Domino et tu
remisisti impietatem peccati mei [diapsalma]
Pro hac orabit ad te omnis
sanctus in tempore oportuno
Verumtamen in diluvio aquarum
multarum ad [eum non adproximabunt]
There is a discrepancy between the numbering of the Psalms in the Vulgate, a Latin translation of the original, and in English translations such as the King James Version, so if you want to read the verses in English then look up Psalm 32.

"I thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound"

I went to an exhibit on pre-Raphaelite art at the National Gallery of Art and saw two paintings done from scenes in Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott."  I was already familiar with John William Waterhouse's painting of the lady in the boat looking rather doomed and tragic.  In this exhibit's paintings, the lady is weaving.  One of the looms has a round frame, a peculiar setup.  You can see it on page 43 of the exhibition booklet.  The booklet also shows a Morris & Co. tapestry on page 38.

I got an anthology of Tennyson out of the library and read the poem.  It is rather fantastical.  I can see a normal person staying up late to weave but not weaving night and day; it makes the point that the lady of Shalott is not a normal person in ordinary circumstances.  I noticed she is cut off from the population yet somehow never runs out of yarn.  Odd, that.  If you like fairy tales, there is a tower and a knight and a mirror.  The story comes from the Arthurian legends.

I also read The Princess and came across a couple of lines I recognized.  A Handbook to Literature gives them as an example in its definition of alliteration.  The Handbook cites the poem's author but no title.  When I read the definition I'd been curious and wanted to see the lines in context, but never looked them up.  I found the lines at the end of this segment:

Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height....
So waste not thou, but come; for all the vales
Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth
Arise to thee; the children call, and I
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.

–Tennyson, The Princess, part seventh 

Four Ways to Chart Språng

I've found four ways to chart språng hole patterns so far in four books.  This video is my attempt to make sense of the four methods.

There is more I still need to cover.  I plan at some point to reverse engineer a pattern from a picture of an actual språng item.

What you see isn't always what you get.  The cloth's appearance will not exactly match the chart's depiction, whichever method you choose.  There is also a difference between the way språng cloth looks stretched on the loom and what it looks like when finished.  I need to play with that and see if there are any principles that will let me chart original motifs without them coming out squashed or distorted.

Article about Old Believers Tablet Weaving

Sometimes information comes in by dribs and drabs.  When I do tablet weaving, I secure the warp at my waist using a tool I had made after an image in the documentary film Old Believers.

The weaver in that film is Feodora Seledkova.  According to Kathe Todd-Hooker's "The Russian Old Believers in Woodburn, Oregon," Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot, Winter '96/'97, p. 58-61, a weaver named Feodora S. taught Todd-Hooker how to weave after her tradition and allowed belts to be photographed for illustration.  Her age, difficulty finding a successor, and use of a translator are the same in both article and film.

In one illustration, p. 58, there is a piece of wood, with a balled-up knot of completed belt sticking through its centre and a thick belt looped through the notches on either side as though securing it at the waist.  The interesting thing is, the piece of wood is shown from the side.  You cannot see the clever shape that allows the design to do this.

I think it's interesting that the information would be obscured in the article, and shown in the film.

Språng in Barber's The Mummies of Ürümchi

I got ahold of a copy of Barber's The Mummies of Ürümchi (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999), looked up språng in the index, and went to the page.

Two women wore black hairnets that may or may not be made in språng.  That is all.  She adds a footnote defining språng and states that it is still done by "elderly peasants in parts of Greece, Scandinavia, and Central Europe." (p. 200)

Borum Eshøj språng hairnet at National Museum, Denmark

Found the Borum Eshøj språng hairnet image at the National Museum, Denmark's website: http://natmus.dk/historisk-viden/temaer/livet-i-oldtiden/hvordan-gik-de-klaedt/bronzealderens-dragter/kvindens-dragt-i-bronzealderen/

Part of the caption, translated by Google Translate, reads, "The woman from Borum Eshøj at Aarhus had a beautiful hairnet and a hat, which was merged into sprang technique, with the grave."

This same item is shown in Peter Collingwood's The Techniques of Sprang and described in the book as having ridges and multiple twists.

Språng Bredmose Cap in Glob's The Bog People

I got ahold of P.V. Glob's The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved, trans. Rupert Bruce-Mitford (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969) to look at an illustration of a språng cap found at Bred fen, Storarden (Arden forest), Denmark.

While I am a little squeamish about grave finds and wish we could let everything rest, the cap is certainly pretty.  Glob describes it as "a skillfully-made little bonnet or cap of wool yarn, held by two fastening-strings.  This is made by means of a special technique known as 'sprung' (sprang) and is a charming net-like head-covering."  (p. 82)

I like the translator's choice to give the name as it is pronounced in the original language.

The shape of the cap is similar to the bog hood I made, though there is no tablet-woven strap at the front and the yarn looks thinner.  The pattern of interlinking looks much like Skrydstrup, with five or six repeats, though it is hard to see.  I am not sure if there is a line of interlacing where rows of S twists reverse to rows of Z twists.

The National Museum, Denmark gave me this page when I searched for Bredmose (Bred fen): http://natmus.dk/historisk-viden/temaer/livet-i-oldtiden/hvordan-gik-de-klaedt/teknologi-og-produktion/sprang/.  In the right margin is a thumbnail image of the Bredmose cap, which you can enlarge to see in more detail.  The museum shows a different view than Glob's book, which is good.  I can see there is some seaming below the gathered section at the back.  The image is in colour, though presumably what you see is not the original colour of the wool but a tint picked up from bog water.

The large image on the page is not the cap found at Bredmose, it is a hairnet found at Haraldskær.  It is in fragmentary condition.  The pattern looks to be mainly holes used all across the warp, given by Collingwood in The Techniques of Sprang starting on page 132.

I ran the text of that museum webpage through Google Translate.  Part of it states, "Sprang [is] prepared in a frame where the clamped warp threads are twisted with each other in various patterns. Trend pattern is held in place by a single line, and without the use of a continuous element [weft]...Textiles in sprang technique associated primarily with headdresses for women."

The Story of George Washington Carver

I picked up a used copy of a slim children's book, Eva Moore's The Story of George Washington Carver.

When I was a child, Carver was a hero because he invented peanut butter.  He was also a hero to the grown-ups at church because he combined faith and intellect in his approach.  He prayed to God asking for revelation so he could understand the purpose and potential of materials in his experiments.  That is, "what is the peanut for?"  Then he did systematic scientific experiments, lots of them.  Carver was also considered admirable because he had gotten a good education in the face of racial prejudice and limited opportunities.  That's pretty much all I knew as a kid.

I know more now, from the biography, and someday I should read one written for an adult audience.  I respect Carver's commitment to teaching people how to cultivate and use natural materials in practical ways that made their lives better.

There are mentions of yarn, needlework, and dyes in the book.  Moore writes that Carver owned his mother's spinning wheel, meant for cotton, and could spin yarn himself.  He could also knit, crochet, embroider, and sew.  He made rugs out of dried okra stalks and taught people how to make them.

Carver taught a system of compost and crop rotation to increase cotton yields.  He taught farmers to make yellow paint from clay.  He developed dyes from sweet potatoes and peanuts.

The Fiberarts book of Wearable Art

I read Katherine Duncan Aimone's The Fiberarts Book of Wearable Art (New York: Lark Books, 2002).

The chapter on Carol Lee Shanks appeals to me, since the designer uses handspun, hand-dyed, handwoven cloth made by Kathryn Alexander.  The cloth has a light texture like gauze.  The cloth is made with energized singles yarn.  I had been wondering how the weight of a jacket would drag down the crinkles in collapse cloth like this, so it was helpful to see the drape.

There is one dye technique in the book that I would like to do because I like the effect.  It's shown on page 53 and looks like crazing on porcelain glaze.  It is done by Kay Disbrow and is called a dextrin resist.

Some of her most interesting pieces have resulted from her experimentation with dextrin resist--a vegetable paste made of potato (dextrin) powder.  To undertake this technique, fabric is stretched and anchored to a table and the cooled paste is spread on selected areas.  When the resist dries, it crackles.  Thickened dyes are spread over the paste, allowing the color to penetrate the cracks.  The dextrin is eventually removed to reveal the spontaneous patterns created by the natural course revealed in the drying.  (p. 54)

Anne Field's Spinning Wool: Beyond the Basics

Am reading Anne Field's Spinning Wool: Beyond the Basics, revised edition  (North Pomfret, VT: Trafalgar Square, 2010). 

The picture of the Ashford Elizabeth wheel on page 68 is reversed and some quantities read incorrectly because the dots are missing in the numbers so the place values are off.  Other than that, the information is laid out well and the section on wheels is keeping the attention of me, a drop spindle user. 

I like it best when Field gives glimpses into what it's like to spin with wool raised in her native New Zealand and what her background and experience has been, both personally and as a handspinning teacher. 

Beyond Weaving

I skimmed Marcia Chamberlain and Candace Crockett's Beyond Weaving (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1974).  I bypassed the recommendations to spin greasy wool with a three-ounce drop spindle, and concentrated on chapter seven, "Braiding and Plaiting," which included språng.

I would be interested to know why S twist interlinking, and S twist only, sprang is shown, if this was done historically or what the rationale is.  Same for why the Hopi wedding sash is described as a distinct thing and not språng, where other authors treat it as interlinked språng.

I was pleased that specifications are given for the sash and the frame:

The traditional Hopi sash is made of two-ply white handspun cotton, braided into a strip from 8" to 10" wide and from 8 to 10 feet long, including a long twisted fringe at each end.  (p. 139) 

In the traditional Hopi method, the top bar of the stretched warp is anchored to the wall of the house or kiva and the other bar to a heavy stone, so the warp is stretched horizontally just above the floor.  The braid is worked with the weaver or braider sitting parallel to the bar.  The sticks are inserted at the end where he is working, brought toward the body and then pushed away.  After a number of sticks have been inserted they are worked all the way around the warp, over and around the other anchor bar and down the underneath side, so the interlinking butts up with the top set of interlinked threads.  As braiding continues the entire warp is periodically shifted to move the interlinked fabric to the bottom so the braider does not have stretch too far or move out of position.  Eventually the warp threads are cut in the center, forming a long braided sash with fringe at each end.  There is a kind of seam at the sash center where the two parts of the braid meet, but no separate center cord is worked across.  (p. 142)

Lambsquarters

I read Barbara McLean's Lambsquarters: Scenes from a Handmade Life (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2002).  She writes about raising sheep in Ontario, learning to spin yarn, weaving and knitting clothes with her own sheep's wool for her family to wear, and acquiring many other skills.

I had a neighbour who spun.  I followed her home from Alderney one day and boldly turned in her lane.  She got out of her car, gave me a quizzical look, and I told her my business, asked her to help me, begged for the knowledge to spin.  Malka gave me a start right then and there, invited me into her home, her studio, and slowly showed me the wool, the wheel, the magic of thread.  (p. 50)

McLean doesn't go into a lot of detail about the her loom or the wool baby clothes she made or the handspinners events she went to.  She must have gone to some events because she mentions that she got an angora rabbit at one.  She gives specifics when it serves the story, like the story about a special sheep she raised.  After its natural death, she saved some of its wool and incorporated it into sweaters. 

Many people who work with fibre have a primary skill they like best and I think from her descriptions she is more a weaver than a spinner, but that's speculation.