Viksdottir’s Loom

04/06/2026

We went to the Worstead Woolly weekend last year and it was a lovely day out, the cakes were amazing! So pop along!

Wild Woolers will be at Woolly.

25/05/2026

Do you remember the triangular shawl I was making on my loom? This was a technique where you use the warp as the weft thereby the weaving width gradually reduces across the loom as each warp is becoming the weft. Well, I tried it and finished it. A very interesting technique, not hard but very slow going! Also one thing I didn’t take into account was the picks per inch (PPI) which can affect the whole process! So it started off with nice square patterns, lovely, and then as I got used to the process I speeded up. Not a problem, normally. But it is a problem if your squares gradually become rectangular as you beat harder because you are whizzing through it! Basically I ended up with an asymmetrical triangle! I was a bit annoyed with myself at this point but wet finished and tidied it up and thought about what to do with it. After much fiddling about I’m happy that I may have turned it into something useful!

If you are interested in buying it I have put it on the listing of the Etsy shop which you can get to from here via the button at the top of this page. You will also find the rectangular shawl I wove to finish up the warp, there was a lot more left than I presumed there was!

09/05/2026

I’m having a break from fibre preparation until I’ve got my gear together. So don’t despair more to come of my attempts at combing and carding!

I can’t claim credit for this particular weave. It caught my eye and I decided to have a go at this technique of weaving a triangular shawl on the loom without cutting or folding the fabric produced! Sounds crazy but actually it’s quite simple. My own pattern and colour design, done in 4 ply British wool and 2/2 twill on 4 shafts. How to make a rectangle weave a triangle!

I absolutely love it but I have to say it is not quick as I’m jumping up and down between each pick to cut the next warp that I use as weft! Many thanks to Friederike Wilke for the diagrams and help.

02/05/2026

So I am in a quandary. I now have a lovely huge bag of our Icelandic ewe Freydis’s fleece ready for the last preparation before spinning. We purchased a large drumcarder and then, I read about combing instead!

All you lovely experienced fleece preparation people, can you explain to me what I need to do so that I can prepare this Icelandic fleece for spinning? Do I comb it or card it? Don’t forget it’s double coated and I am happy to use both tog and thel. I’ve read about worsted spinning and woollen spinning I haven’t a clue what I’ve learnt to do! I understand the difference in yarn but I’m getting it that what is produced is also dependent on how the fleece was prepared ie combed or carded? Is this correct?

30/04/2026

Part 3 -Skirting another Icelandic fleece!

As I said in my last post I am sorting out our 4 Icelandic fleeces. The first one I showed you was Freydis whose fleece I was solely using for spinning and for the first time in my life skirted the fleece, scoured, rinsed and rolled it up to be ready for the next stage. The other 3 fleeces I am going to use first of all in the raw, and the locks will be separated out to be used to make the varafeldur. Then whatever’s left will be cleaned and carded ready for spinning. This time I was less worried about skirting and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process of looking them over, skirting and tidying up the fleeces. I had made the cotton bags especially as I had read that they can sweat in a plastic bag. The twins Sigunn and Sigrid fleece were quite easy to spot as they have a big ring of black round their necks, whilst Astrid’s is much more of a reddy brown. The larger pieces I took off which were dirty but not too matted I put into a separate bag and it now has bits of fleece from all 4 of them which I’m quite looking forward to cleaning as much as I can and seeing what I get from it. I have to say my spinning is coming along but not that consistent yet so I’ve got to get practicing!

I hope you enjoy the video and please remember that this is my first time preparing fleece so I may well have done things incorrectly. In other words this is not a tutorial or a ‘how to do…’ video!

26/04/2026

Part 2b - Rinsing!

As I had a mix of photos and videos FB won’t let me post both together!

So as I explained in Part 2 I rinsed the washed fleece twice with cold water as the fleece was still wet with cold water. I decided to take some video of this as by now I was really panicking as it was not looking any better and I thought it may have felted. But as it was drying it which happened over 2 sunny days in April it started to fluff up and the locks were much more noticeable. The only thing that was still disappointing was the matted area in the middle. It is just literally like a doormat! I will let you know how I get on with it.

26/04/2026

PART 2 -Scouring the Fleece

The title makes it sound like I know what I’m doing! After having panicked over skirting the fleece and decided I probably should have taken more off, the next stage was scouring. I have now watched various YouTube videos, consulted several books and phoned a friend I realised that I had to just get on with it! I had previously bought some Synthrawash (a mild detergent for washing before dying and fleeces) I probably will use a washing up liquid in the future especially one like Ecover.

Hubby had cut in half horizontally an IBC tank, it still had the tap at the bottom. I didn’t feel like I could use the bath indoors lol! I’m so glad I didn’t. So using lots of kettles of boiling water and large saucepans we filled to a depth of about 8” the tank with hot water. I’d read that it said ‘hot water’ but having wet finished a lot of my woollen woven cloaks before I didn’t feel inclined I could have the water too hot. So I settled on baby bath water hotness! I then carefully lowered the whole fleece carefully into the water, pushing it under with the end of a wooden spoon. It was hard resisting the urge for a bit of ‘washing and scrubbing’, and in fact I left it in there for at least an hour. The water was filthy and quite scummy. We repeated this, getting the fleece out each time, ‘scouring’ 3 times altogether with the water getting cleaner each time. The very last we left the water to go cold, we laid the fleece out on to the mesh table to dry. The next day I decided to rinse it in the tank with cold water. Again just dipping it into the water, no squeezing or ringing. It certainly looked cleaner but there was still a whole section that was from Freydis’s back which was severely matted. This I had noted before she was even sheared! I think it was down to the wet winter we had but now of course it was fast becoming a big problem. For the rinsing I had pulled great lumps off as they were falling off anyway and even tried soaking the matted area for longer but to no avail. After rinsing I laid the bits of fleece out on the mesh table and it took 2 days in the sun to dry. Unfortunately I think I became quite disillusioned with my endeavours and forgot to take a photo! lol but it fluffed up beautifully and it no longer smells of sheep, the white is very white, but there is still some lanolin in it and a few bits of vm! So it’s now packed up in a cotton bag I made for it waiting out our drum carder to arrive! Part 3 coming soon.

18/04/2026

18/04/2026

Well, I’m just starting my journey into producing my own Icelandic yarn! We had our four beautiful Icelandic ewes sheared for the first time a few days ago. That was nerve wracking enough but today I was practically shaking as I tried to ‘skirt’ the first fleece from Freydis! The other 3 I am going to be using their togs (the long curly bits) to finally finish off the varafeldur I started weaving about 2 years ago. There will be more on those later but today was all about the fleece that I hopefully will spin!

I have to stress that I do not know what I’m doing! I’ve read in books and the information is so limited that it doesn’t help. I’ve watched numerous videos which some was pretty much like in the books, and of course the other thing is Icelandics are double coated so some of the advice doesn’t seem to work. So mainly it seems that when skirting (by the way hubby made the ‘skirting table’, impressive eh!) you take off all the vegetable matter and the bits that are so badly clogged up with dirt and poo you can’t use. So I started to panic as it seemed every bit was either stuck together or so matted with vm to be deemed unusable. But also the top or togs might be matted and stuck together but the thel (undercoat) was perfectly white and as far as I can tell useable. So yes I did go round all the edges which would have been belly, neck and round the rump and take off the worst and then some bits which had some lovely white thel as well I’ve put aside to ‘review’ it! After all my panicking there was a whole load left and I’d hardly touched it! So next procedure is scouring the fleece (basically washing it but not as you would expect!).

This is certainly a huge learning curve for me and please be gentle with me if I have done it wrong! I absolutely hate not knowing if I’m doing something correctly but you’ve got to start somewhere and making mistakes is how you learn. Hubby has cut an IBC tank in half for the scouring and we intend to use the ‘skirting table’ as a place to dry the fleece as it’s just welded mesh! That possibly might be tomorrow, depends on weather.

14/04/2026

I’ve been working on some sheep towels! I saw them ages ago and fancied having some like our sheep. But seeing ours are Icelandic it was hard trying to get the right colour lol! Anyway it was fun making them. They are done in overshot and I used 3/2 cotton for the sheep as the actual plain weave for the body should have been 8/2 cotton but I was trying to use my stash! lol The towels ended up a lot thicker and bigger than they were supposed to be so I’m using them for hand towels instead. I’ve a funny feeling all the sheep are slightly different! lol