Wool, Yarn and Beyond

by: Tone Tobiasson

Wool, Yarn & Beyond

The Nordic region, often wrongly named “Scandinavia”, lies so far north that most outsiders will assume we all have a strong affinity for wool as we huddle around the fireplace picture-perfecting “hygge” (“cozying up”). However, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Finland and Sweden display everything from itchy ignorance to whole-hearted woolliness.

Scandinavia encompasses only Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The Nordic region includes Finland in the east and Iceland in the west, as well as the Faeroe Islands (technically part of Denmark) and Aaland (which is in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden). Only Norway and Iceland have well-functioning wool valuechains. Norway has two main actors – the farmers’ cooperative Nortura and the private company Fatland – and they divide the wool clip and lamb chops between them to the tune of 80/20. Iceland has a private company handling most of its wool clip. Sheep farmers in Sweden, Norway, and Finland have been more or less left to fend for themselves. Shepherding is not common in the Nordic region as flocks are too small; 60 is the average flock-size in Norway, 30 the average in Sweden, 75 in Finland. Iceland has its own breed of “leader sheep” that do the shepherding, and protect the flock from predators and bad weather. Animal welfare is high on the agenda internationally, and the sheep frolicking in the mountain, forest and fjord regions on their own, are seen as a positive in the Nordic region, even though wolverines, wolves, foxes, bears, eagles and lynx do a fair amount of damage each summer. Animal welfare rules, at least in Norway, dictate that the flock is seen to once a week during the summer season.

Norwegian sheep dot the country-side during the spring, summer and fall; grazing free without shepherds.

Norway

Norwegian sheep dot the countryside during the spring, summer and fall; grazing free without shepherds. Image by Sune Eriksen/Norilia

Norwegians wear wool yearround. The country has the best-developed government subsidized collection-system and an infrastructure for functioning value-chains for wool – from sheep to shop. A few years ago, a fully intact woven wool tunic from around 400 AD was found at a melted glacier, which goes to show the rich heritage for woolen garments in even pre-Viking times. And Vikingexplorations to America, Russia and Constantinople used wool sails and the “varafell”, a fleecelike woven throw that kept sailors warm and semi-dry in the open ships.

The rain-coat-like property of this ancient wool is due to the dual fleece of the Old Norse sheep breed, also called Viking sheep or Wild sheep – as they stay outside in all kinds of weather. The coarse, shiny cover wool lets the rain and seawater run off while the soft underwool is softer than the softest Merino. However, these sheep are not the main providers of wool in Norway – until recently their wool has troubled modern spinning-machines. Most of the Norwegian clip is from crossbred sheep (80%); broad wool and is exported through Curtis Wool Direct, for carpeting. Around 3500 tons of wool is collected and classified through 11 wool stations from north to south. The country is mainly covered by non-arable land so most grazing-areas are uncultivated and sheep are important to keeping the landscape in shape. However, as Marion Tviland, responsible for wool in Nortura’s subdivision Norilia, says: - ‘The government subsidy for wool makes it worthwhile for struggling farmers to breed mainly meat-sheep with

Image by Sune Eriksen/Norilia

good quality wool and make sure the wool is sheared and treated in the best way before it is graded.’ The fact that we also have a national grading system, which is unique for the Nordic countries, with 16 grades that decide the price makes it predictable for the sheep-farmers. This reduces the time they must wait for the wool to be sold and payment is made as the kilo-price is set once a year. The Sheep and Goat organization works closely with Norilia and Fatland concerning breeding, and they have recently inaugurated a project to educate farmers on better wool handling in conjunction with shearing, grading, and animal welfare.

As Norwegians are not big on carpet, and the long-standing weaving tradition of tapestries has more or less died out, finding good end-uses for the sturdy crossbred wool with high crimp, with a 33 micron average has not been easy. Blankets and throws have been one market that has expanded in popularity as Norwegian designers have been recruited to add flair, and as many Norwegian families own at least one cabin — there seems to be an insatiable hunger for this type of product. Some designers have also taken their signature designs and transformed these throws into coats and jackets for both women and men. Fashion brands include Oleana, Tom Wood and Elisabeth Stray Pedersen.

Perhaps the most important of all end-products for Norwegian wool is the signature knitted Norwegian sweater which is either handknitted or can be machine-knitted by old and new woolen mills such as Devold, Dale of Norway, Bråtens, Norlender and Rauma. Almost all are woven by Røros Tweed, owner of Rauma Woolen Mill – a historic company based in the world heritage town of Røros. Rauma Woolen Mill is the secondlargest of three major Norwegian spinning mills, the other two being Sandnes Yarn and Hillesvåg Woolen Mill.

There are also around four minimills that have popped up around the country, working closely and directly with farmers to ensure their wool is transformed into high quality yarns. In the small municipality of Kåfjord (with a spinning wheel on the municipal coat of arms), is Europe’s northernmost carding mill. Kåfjord carding mill is a vibrant and growing enterprise, run by a new generation with new ideas. There is even a micro-mill on the outskirts of the capital of Oslo, to showcase this diversity.

Norway is a high-cost country with a marked increase in interest in handknitting, with an even further jump in yarn-sales during the COVID-19 crisis. The buzz via social media, yarn-sales via the internet, and home-deliveries directly from yarn-shops, have been successful sales tools.

Norwegian spinning mills primarily spin crossbred lambs’ wool, for its tenacity, 28 micron average and good crimp. The 132-year old Sandnes Yarn company operates a large proportion of the alpaca and merino wool market for handknitting (spinning yarns from 130 local Merino sheep in the valley of Gudbrandsdalen), while Hillesvåg has been experimenting with other Norwegian breeds that have not been favored by spinning mills for knitting yarns, such as wool from the Norwegian cousin of the Gotland sheep and even the Old Norse breed, both pigmented wool-types.

The Heathered yarns with a special sheen have been a successful product-development on machines from the turn of the 19th century. Norway is also a large exporter of hand-knittingyarns to the Nordics, Europe, Russia and the USA. Popular knit-designers such as Arne &

The Norwegian fashion brand Tom Wood have cooperated with Røros Tweed weaving mill to produce woolen coats from Norwegian lamb’s wool.

Image by RenateTorseth

Carlos, known to all hand-knitting connoisseurs, have boosted this trend.

Hydro-electric power and abundant water for scouring explain why most woolen mills were established in Norway in the 1800s; more or less every valley or parish had one. But in contrast to other European countries, some have survived the massive move of the textile industry to the Far East. Sandnes Yarn has a large capacity scour for its own use as they lack a wool-press and Hillesvåg have small-scale scouring facilities, and the mini and micro mills scour themselves.

This may change, as plans have been developed to establish a scouring mill based on spill-water from other industries; however, for now most of the wool is shipped to Haworth Scouring Mill (owned by Nortura). As well as hand-knitting yarns and throws as end-products, keeping the wool industry alive and thriving in Norway is the national costume (bunad). Bunads are also worn as formal wear at gala dinners, weddings, christenings and always worn on the national holiday of May 17th. Mainly made with wool woven fabrics, weaving mills such as Krivi Weaving Mill in Tingvoll and Gudbrandsdalens Woolen Mill in Lillehammer are state-of-the-art factories keeping this tradition alive. Today more of the Norwegian wool-clip is being used in these fabrics.

A renewed interest in Norwegian wool is in furniture and clothing fabrics, where a heavier or even felted weave works well. In the 1990s cross-country ski-champion and heart-throb Vegard Ulvang was persuaded to front first wool-socks and later next-to-skin underwear for sports use because of his name (ull is the Norwegian word for wool). The result was phenomenal, as a new generation of parents dressing their kids for kindergarten, which is spent mainly outdoors in wet and cold, learned the wonders of wool. An industry mushroomed around the athleisure trend of actual undergarments becoming the staplepiece for after-ski and selfies from mountain-tops. This type of clothing, in the COVID-19-era, is far from suffering from the dip in clothingsales affecting the fashion

industry. Even the Minister of Culture, Mr. Abid Raja, mentioned this in a radio-interview in 2020: - ‘All you need to vacation in Norway is a sleeping bag and lots of wool!’ Another solid market not affected by COVID-19 is wool procurement by government for use in military and police uniforms. Contracts beyond Norway are also on the increase. Rita Johansen of Aclima, told wool2yarn ‘the interest in both Sweden and Denmark has increased for Merino-based next-to-skin products for this segment. After years of sticking with synthetics and cotton, the tide is changing. The fact that they stay warm even when wet, once they realize that and the healthconsequences, it’s easy to sell them on wool’.

Image by Rauma

Sweden

We have all heard the saying, a stitch in time saves nine. In the case of Swedish wool, it was in the nick of time that someone tried to stitch together a functioning value-chain. Back in 2010, a study was published by the Textile College in Borås stating that ‘up until three years ago, without wool collection stations at the point of slaughter-house, 80% of the Swedish 1100-ton wool-clip was burned or thrown away as waste’.

The privately owned Toarps Säteri company, Sweden’s largest organic sheep farmer and producer of throws with patterns from Viking times, had created 15 wool collection stations and exported most of this wool. While some

Norway has large and small woolen spinning mills, and hand-knitting yarns are the main product.

of these have since closed down Ullkontoret (“The Wool Office”) is at the center of a new impetus for a revival of wool in textiles, and especially Swedish wool.

Ullkontoret is a scouring mill, which started after buying all, scouring machinery from a mill that closed down outside Madrid in Spain in 2013. The parts were driven through Europe to Sweden, collecting fines at several checkpoints for overloading! Ullkontoret is now the only large-scale scouring facility in Scandinavia, and in 2019 scoured 60 tons wool. ‘Our full capacity is 200 tons’, explains owner Hans Bulthuis, who has been scouring since 2015.

Sweden has around 9000 sheep, mostly small-holdings with up to 50 sheep, mainly in Skåne, Western Götaland and Gotland. Sweden has a very different agricultural philosophy than Norway, where the whole aim is to dot the entire country with activity. Sweden prefers to keep people and activity in compact areas and leave the rest “wild”. Lambs are born year-round, to ensure fresh lamb chops at all times. Sweden also differs from Norwegians who embraces wool as a fiber of choice. Swedes are big fans of synthetics without the same impetus to revert back to wool, as Merino wool entered the next-to-skin era. This, however, is now changing, as

has been the Aclima experience. Companies such as Fjällräven, FilippaK, Gudrun Sjödén, Tiger of Sweden, Acne and even H&M have embraced wool. All are part of a newly started Swedish Wool Initiative (except H&M). While Norwegian projects have been funded by the Norwegian Research Council, which is government funded, since 2010 the Swedish projects have eked out funding from local municipalities and enterprises. There is little to no governmental support. As Sweden lacks a functioning infrastructure, shearing-competence and a classification-system, “this is first priority”, says Elin Larsson in FilippaK who spear-headed last year’s successful experiment where the iconic fashion-brand, ending up selling out 140 numbered sweaters in 100% Swedish-scoured local wool that would have otherwise been destroyed.

The Swedish Sheep Breeding Association hopes to create a cooperative organization with textile and fashion brands, to assist farmers. Hurdles include the lack of wool-presses, and the lack of production-machinery, as most industrial machines were sold to Baltic countries several years ago. Annkristin Hult, national developer for the National Swedish Handicraft Council, told wool2yarn, ‘we’ll just have to – at least for the time being – work with the Baltics and embrace that they are in our proximity’. hard to identify the sheep with wool-producing potential. The wool is sorted and organized by breeds (and the quality or fineness doesn’t necessarily follow the breed). Finull (“fine wool”) is the softest wool. A project is working with Merino breeds to improve the micron-count – somewhere between 20 and 30. Gobelängull is lustrous wool, close to the Norwegian spæl (short tailed) sheep, used for tapestryweaving which has a long and colorful tradition in the Nordic region with leading artisans who have decorated public buildings for centuries – you will find one hanging in the UN building in New York by Norwegian Else Poulsson.

Ryaull is carpet-yarn, while Korsningsull is crossbred or broad wool. Grey Gotland is an interesting “black sheep” in the family, as it is naturally grey and therefore not an industry-favorite. However, as mentioned earlier, the interior trends are opening up a market for this type of wool, giving its name to a new project which aims to find uses for this lustrous wool that can give heathered or naturally pigmented wool. However, it is challenging to spin because of its shiny, slippery surface. It has been bred mainly for wool fleece-pelts, where spinnability has not been an issue.

In Reykjavik, the traditional lopi sweater in Icelandic wool is in every tourist shop. The islensklopapeysais now legally protected as a product name.

Image by Tone Tobiasson

Gotland is the home of 70,000 sheep, of which 80% are Gotland sheep. The prices for Swedish wool vary from 1 to 50 SEK per kilo, some wool is as high as 100 SEK. The wool is scoured and the quality established before payment is made to the farmer – and this may explain some of the lack of engagement. ‘We are anxious because we need to sell the scoured wool to customers in order to pay the farmers and with the COVID-19 situation marketplaces for selling the wool have ceased business’, explains Mr Bulthuis. These marketplaces include the annual Fårfest (sheep festival) in the small town of Kil, where over 10,000 visitors converge to celebrate sheep and wool for three days.

Current and past projects have tried to find the best use for the Swedish wool. Their approach has been a little different than the other countries, even though knitting-yarns, sweaters, throws and fabrics for national costumes have been part of both past offerings and current developments. Yoga-mats, horse covers, sitting-mats (a huge market for all the Nordic countries where hiking is big), jacket-insulation, sound-absorbing elements for public spaces, building insulation. The latest venture is wool pellets for soilenhancement that Ullkontoret is experimenting with for the wool that is full of vegetable matter and has been piling up.

There is a patchwork of companies in the wool valuechain within the Swedish borders that haven’t given up and sold out. The National Swedish Handicraft Council did apply for a grant to start up a worsted mill, but the authorities deemed this not to be “innovative” enough as the technology is already known. Bureaucrats tend to think that anything that can’t be patented is not innovation! In spite of this, an independent wool station in the far north of Sweden has started up. There is also a carding mill (Åddebo), five mini-mills and five more established spinning-mills that are, however, also fairly small in size. These are Wålstedts textilverkstad, Ostergötlands ullspinneri, Filtmakeriet, Gotlands Ullspinneri and Solkustens spinnverkstad. A larger mill, Kampes, spins imported fibers. 300 tons of wool is imported each year to Sweden.

Iceland

If you travel to Iceland, you will see wool as soon as you land at the Keflavik airport. Pictures and samples of their famed Lopapeysa sweater are everywhere. They are worn by tourists rather than fashion conscious Reykjavikians. The very loosely knit sweater in the even more loosely spun lopi-yarn is sold absolutely everywhere, mainly in the natural wool hues of browns, off-white and black. The term íslensk lopapeysa is now legally protected as a product name.

Within the Nordic region, Icelanders cure their mutton for the long haul, and have national dishes based on the tasty meat, in the same way as Norwegians. It was the Vikings, or, as the Icelanders call them — the “settlers” — who brought the Old Norse breed to Iceland, and today it is the only sheep breed there,

having adapted to the country’s harsh conditions. Just as most short-tailed spæl, they have a dual-coated wool. One other breed has recently gained status as a separate breed, based on physical, behavioral and molecular research: the Icelandic leader sheep. They arrived alongside the Old Norse sheep 1,100 years ago, and make up about 0.5% of the Icelandic flock with some 1,400 animals.

But back to the leader sheep who over centuries have been selected for their ability to lead the flock, sense danger and even bad weather, such as unexpected blizzards. Most are wethers (castrated rams), stand taller than the rest of the flock and are horned, but there are also leaderewes. These Nordic countries also tend to have a lot of human female leaders – Heiða Guðný Ásgeirsdóttir, who left a promising career as a catwalk and fashion model to take over her parents’ sheep-farm, with a flock of 500, also participated in the World Shearing and Wool Handling Championships in New Zealand in 2017, and was the only female contestant! Istex is a privately owned spinning company with a long local history. It scours and spins pigmented wool, as opposed to most manufacturers that prefers wool as white as possible. Istex also over-dyes already pigmented wool and sells naturally pigmented wool. Wool is collected from farms with a pricing-system based on quality, and lower prices for pigmentation. As meat is the most

Image by Theis Poulson

Sandermann is a small Danish designer brand; designer Stine Sandermann has sourced local wool and built her own value-chain in Denmark.

important product, the woolhandling quality varies.

Istex has its own scouring plant located in Blönduós on the north side of the island. From there the wool is transported in bales to the spinning mill. The lanolin is washed out and disposed of into the sea. From the scouring plant about half the wool, mainly the lower grades, is exported directly to spinning mills in Europe, while the best grades go to the mill outside Reykjavik. Istex’s yarn mill is focused on handknitting. The company does produce some industrial yarns for wool throws woven in Lithuania, as there is no weaving mill in Iceland. They have fine-tuned the carding machine to tackle the dual-coated wool. The coarse and long guard hairs (called tog) creates havoc in the normal spinning processes, however, Istex has adjusted the distance between the rollers to reduce catching. Handknitting wool yarn is cheap in Iceland compared to other Nordic countries and “everyone” knits. Many take it on as a side-trade and sell to the hotels and touristshops – a long held tradition. Icelandic designers, like many designers around the world, have dreamed of their local wool becoming softer and more “merino-like”. The soft underwool, called Þel, could possibly meet this demand – however, Iceland does not have a dehairing machine. The start-up of a minimill in Iceland, Uppspuni, could change this for designers – as the slower process makes for softer yarns. Another spinning operation should be open by the time this article is published; Ullarvinnslan Gilhaga received its spinning machines in February 2020, right before the world closed down. It hopes to operate at full capacity when the spring shearing takes place.

Varma and Farmer’s Market are two important wool-knit actors on the Icelandic scene using Icelandic and imported wool. Iceland has a knit-industry up and going, and Varma knits both their own label and for other actors. All the machines are flat-knit machines, so a small-scale operation with a whole-garment knitting-machine has been on the wish-list for

several of the designers we have been in contact with over the years.

In Norway the semi knit-factory Graveniid and Rauma have made successful investments in this space, and Oleana also recently followed suit. Varma owns some other production units in Iceland, and the over-150-yearold company employs around 50 people. Farmer’s Market is a design brand and customer of Varma. For their own collections, Varma (with the tagline “the warmth of Iceland”) knits socks, hats, scarves and mittens, for the most part.

A new line of clothes has been added to the collection under the brand name, Blik for Varma Design. This is a line of clothes for fashion but with “a hint of history taken from Icelandic nature and the way of life that existed in ancient Iceland”. Varma’s plan is to establish connections within the Chinese market, to start selling their products there as well as looking for a local producer. All of their products are currently manufactured in Iceland from pure, “mostly” Icelandic wool. The company exports to Denmark, Norway and Germany. Other knitting operations include Icewear, Kidka and Vikurpjon. Kidka offers factory tours and sells its blankets, sweaters, hats and other products all over Iceland from Icelandic wool and offer a “make your own woolen hat” workshop at the 40-year-old knitting factory. Icewear also started up in the 1970’s and also produces down-

Image by Simon Skreddernes/Oleana

The knitting-factory outside Bergen, Oleana, has a long history of local and hands-on production. Recently a new generation took over and are gearing up to become a fashion brand to reckon with.

jackets and a wide array of knitted products with “Nordic patterns”. They use both Icelandic wool and “wool-blends”. They also have a large collection of throws and, like Kidka, these are knitted and popular with tourists. They also sell via Amazon.com

Line Eskestad (far left), Mette Østmanog, Pia Busk with Uurnas handmade felted funeral urns. Hotel Le Louis Versailles Château MGallery Denmark – Ege Carpets

Denmark

Denmark is a small country, with a long textile history. It has large woolbuying carpet and other interior textiles companies, and a tiny emerging artisan and fashion sector turning to local wool. It is easy, however, to forget that Denmark also includes Greenland and the Faeroe Islands – where the descendants from the old Norse breeds that were transported in Viking times still graze. There is even a musk ox wool small-scale industry.

Most production is in spinning, weaving, knitting and felting. Danish brands are produced in the Baltics or elsewhere. And hardly any of the local wool – with the exception of Greenland’s and the Faeroe Islands’ wool – finds its way into regional quality products. Most of the wool shorn in Denmark, ended up as waste until recently. But as Danes are good at branding, and less focused on the raw materials and processing, they leave the processing to their Scandinavian counter-parts.

It was, however, the Danes who brought much of the wool-knitting industry to the Nordic region, as they adopted a cottage-industry with craftspeople and travelling salespeople who brought the hats, socks and other textile products to remote farms and crofts from the 1600s to the 1800s. The story involves kings and paupers, natural resources and traderoutes, and ultimately the industrialization of the wool industry. It was the Dane, Peter Jebsen from Schleswig-Holstein who started up the Arna factories in 1846 (now housing Oleana), and later Dale of Norway in Dalekvam – both production facilities in full operation outside Bergen today.

Danish designer Stine Sandermann has been working closely with local sheepfarmers and Hjelholdt mini-mill on the island of Fyn to improve their wool for sale. The large wool companies in Denmark haven’t quite bought into her idea, even though the sheep graze right outside their headquarters as is the case with Ege Carpets in Herning. This wholly automated carpet manufacturer is the second-largest wool consumer in Denmark, and buys its wool from New Zealand and the UK. The largest is the carpet-wool spinner Danspi, with its headquarters close to Ege. However, their spinning-mills have moved to Lithuania and Estonia. Danspin sells its yarns to Danish carpet companies and internationally, and the wool is imported from New Zealand, UK and Norway. actor that has moved its spinning-operation to Lithuania, where the third generation Olsen’s have been working with Gotland wool and later Peruvian alpaca for yarns, as well as finished products such as throws, scarves and pillows. The two spinning-mills that remain in Denmark, Henrichsens Uldspinneri and Læsø Garnspinderi), are both big buyers of New Zealand wool. The former spins for, among others, Danish Isager handknitting yarns, their popular Tvinni and Spinni. Neither of these are in Danish wool, even though local sheep-farmers have tried to convince Marianne Isager that she should try out the wool growing close to her headquarters. Henrichsens also spin the wool clip from Greenland. Another textile company is Kvadrat, which produces high-performance design textiles, rugs, acoustic and window covering

solutions for both commercial and residential interiors, some of these in wool mainly imported from New Zealand. They work closely with world-renowned designers, such as Raf Simons and Ronan.

Norwegian artisan company, Flokk & Fjell recently launched sound absorbing, artistic murals in a felting technique using pigmented wool less suitable for other purposes. A new business, the Danish company Really has started using left-over wool textiles from Kvadrat in a new product-innovation – pressed hardware panels for interior furniture solutions, such as bookcases.

Two felting successes are Glerups and Uurna. The former is a shoecompany started by Nanny Glerup in 1993, using wool from her own Gotland sheep in the popular slippers and shoes. Production has been moved to Romania. The latter company uses local Danish wool, for felted funeral urns, made by artisan felters in Odense, Denmark. These products were developed in 2016 with the biodegradability of wool in mind.

If Danes don’t properly appreciate their local wool, the Faeroe Islanders certainly do. An old proverb says that “ull er færøya gull” - Wool is Faeroe Gold. For over 100 years, knitted woolen garments were the main commodity exported and traded for necessities such as salt, sugar and coffee. Everyone, old and young, men and women, knitted. Today, the designer-duo Guðrun & Guðrun have brought fame to Faeroese knitting with the iconic sweater worn by TV-detective Sarah Lund. However, they haven’t used local wool. In contrast, interior designer Ragnhild Hjalmarsdóttir has, designing interior elements for the Michelinstar-studded restaurant Noma in Copenhagen. The Faeroe Islands derive from the old Norse word Færeyjar, meaning sheep island. The oldest code of law from 1298 deals mainly with sheep husbandry. The Faeroe sheep, descendants from the Old Norse short-tailed breed, were crossbred with imported sheep from Iceland and the Scottish Isles in the 17th century. There are a wide variety of colors: white, grey, light and dark red, chestnut brown and black, or mixtures of these. Some of the wool is spun in Turkey (Navia – blend Faeroe wool with Shetland and Merino – and are behind the famed Navia Knit Book), some in Lithuania – and then there is Snældan.

Snældan is a traditional woolen mill and knit factory. It was founded in 1949 and three generations still work together under the same roof by the fjord of Stendur. At the heart of their production is local wool and tradition, coupled with new developments. On these islands, junior high school students are taken into the wool sorting facility and taught the craft of sorting the wool according to color, which ensures that knowledge passes on to the next generation. Greenland has a large population of sheep. They also have a large musk ox population and yarn production from this unique and soft wool. 20 years ago this local resource, also known as qiviut, was burned as waste. The musk ox is not native to Greenland, where the meat was used but little was understood of the value of the wool, until Anita Høegh, a local woman, took things into her own hands.

Høegh learned how to spin and separate the coarser guard hairs from the soft underwool from the pelts she bought from the hunters. Musk ox do not willingly lend themselves to being shorn. ‘It’s a pretty smelly process’, she explains. The result, however, is spun gold and the yarn commands a high price because of the many hands-on processes. Once the tourists have been told the story, they willingly pay the high price.

Finland

It has been all about wood rather than wool in the eastern-most of the Nordic countries. A bonanza in new technology for viscose-like fibers from the Finnish pine and birch trees has usurped all other focus on any other of the natural resources that could be utilized for yarns.

A sudden interest in local wool as an alternative to the imported wool from Australia, New Zealand or South America has however put undue pressure on the local spinners who deliver handicraft yarns to Finnish knitters and crocheters. Add to that is the lack of infra-structure in a country where the population lives thinly spread throughout the “land of a thousand lakes”. Finland is the eight-largest country in Europe in terms of area, and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. An average sheep herd numbers 75.

The Finnsheep or Finnish landrace, which is the national breed, has exceptionally soft wool even though it is not kept for its fleece. About 80% of the country’s 155 000 sheep are members of this indigenous, old breed that has been traced 4000 years back in time and therefore has many valuable breeding traits. Of the around 572 tons estimated wool produced, the national Finnish Natural Resource Center believe that somewhere between 70-90% of all the wool is waste.

They have tracked 70 000 kilos as being collected. About 18 000 kilos is scoured in the UK for the two mills: Pirtin Kehräämö and TitiTyy Oy (their yarn-label is Tukuwool, which they bought in 2016). Some has been exported for rug-production. In addition, Porin Villa ja Peite has started manufacturing pillow and blanket fillings from Finnish wool, scouring in Belgium. There are also smaller operators that dye the prespun yarns themselves. Aurinkokehrä, uses natural dyes for their worsted yarns and sell throughout yarn-shops in Europe and Louhittaren Luola (Knitlob’s Lair) started out as a blog and also sells a fair amount of wool from the indigenous breed which they hand-dye. Finland’s largest spinning mill, Novita, which was established in 1928, only has a small assortment of Finnish wool for – as far as we could tell – one or two knit-recipes. Orneule is Finland’s largest tricot fabric-bythe-meter producer with Merino wool as their raw material that has a yearly production of half a million kilos. Knitwear companies include Hurlås in Säkylä, producing clothes in Merino wool and cotton. There are some knit-factories producing mainly next-to-skin clothing.In the same town Keino Ecological & Ethical Knitwear also uses Merino wool but most wool used in Finland is imported. Finnish authorities have not given a single euro to encourage the Finn’s role in the current Nordic wool revival. There is a call for reinstating national wool collection and building a scouring mill.