{"id":229,"date":"2012-04-03T06:09:15","date_gmt":"2012-04-03T13:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cookiea.com\/news\/?p=229"},"modified":"2012-04-03T00:15:27","modified_gmt":"2012-04-03T07:15:27","slug":"istex-ridiculous-amounts-of-wool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cookiea.com\/news\/2012\/04\/istex-ridiculous-amounts-of-wool\/","title":{"rendered":"IsTex, ridiculous amounts of wool"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jill, my knitting buddy, and I arrived in Iceland last Wednesday and were greeted by Ragga, the wonderful awesome organizer behind Knitting Iceland<\/a>. We’ve done loads of things since arriving, but our trip to IsTex <\/a>deserves a post all its own.<\/p>\n

Here is Ragga in her Lopi sweater looking excited about IsTex, the mill where all Icelandic wool is spun.<\/p>\n

\"Ragga\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That’s right, there are twice as many sheep as people on this island, and all that wool from the sheep? Most of it comes here to be spun. That means a LOT of wool passes through IsTex.<\/p>\n

\"IsTex
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

This sign is a little misleading. IsTex also imports small quantities of alpaca, cashmere and other fibers to experiment with, but the bulk of what is spun at IsTex is wool from sheep.<\/p>\n

\"Only<\/a><\/p>\n

There are a gazillion bales of wool. No really, everywhere you turn, more wool. LOTS OF WOOL.<\/p>\n

\"Bales\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Bales<\/a><\/p>\n

The wool comes in different colors from the sheep.<\/p>\n

\"Grey<\/a><\/p>\n

Each of these bales is just under 300kg. Here is Jill standing in front of some bales to give a sense of scale.<\/p>\n

\"Jill<\/a><\/p>\n

Did I mention there is a lot of wool? Around every corner?<\/p>\n

\"More<\/a><\/p>\n

Ok, one more shot of bales. But really, I couldn’t even begin to capture the VAST amount of wool. We were giddy on wool fumes.<\/p>\n

\"Even<\/a><\/p>\n

The first step in the production process is the dyeing of the fiber if the fiber is to be dyed in the wool. Here are the vats.<\/p>\n

\"Vats\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These perforated containers go in and out of the vats (they use heavy duty machinery to lift) to hold the wool within the dye bath.<\/p>\n

\"Dyed\"<\/a><\/p>\n

They do lots of colors. Here are the color cards for Lopi, the traditional Icelandic yarn used to make the traditional lopi sweaters.
\n\"Color<\/a><\/p>\n

After the dyeing, the fiber needs to be dried which is a multi-step process. First it is “fluffed” which means a machine pulls the fibers apart a bit.<\/p>\n

\"Fluffed\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then it goes through some super fancy air fluffing process that literally ends with fluffs of fiber flying down into a room. It’s so exciting it deserves an audience.<\/p>\n

\"Spectating<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s a close up of the fluffs flying down.<\/p>\n

\"Dried<\/a><\/p>\n

Then the fiber is carded.<\/p>\n

\"Carding\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It looks like gigantic cotton candy.<\/p>\n

\"Carded\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then it is spun onto these cones with two strands in parallel.<\/p>\n

\"Spinning\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Cones<\/a><\/p>\n

These cones, each with two singles, are then moved to another machine where they are plied onto new cones.<\/p>\n

\"From<\/a><\/p>\n

Those cones are then put onto another machine that will wind the yarn from cones into hanks so they can be washed. I think that step is to remove the oils that are used in the spinning process.<\/p>\n

\"Cone<\/a><\/p>\n

This hank machine is pretty fast.<\/p>\n

\"Hanking\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There are lots of hanks all over the place. LOTS.<\/p>\n

\"LOTS<\/a><\/p>\n

And the hanks are huge. Here is my hand next to one for reference.<\/p>\n

\"Hank\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And then they are wound into balls and packaged and boxed.<\/p>\n

\"Lopi,<\/a><\/p>\n

There are aisles and aisles of boxes of yarn at IsTex.<\/p>\n

\"Boxes<\/a><\/p>\n

Can I just say AMAZING? Want to see even more pictures of IsTex? Check out the Flickr set<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jill, my knitting buddy, and I arrived in Iceland last Wednesday and were greeted by Ragga, the wonderful awesome organizer behind Knitting Iceland. We’ve done loads of things since arriving, but our trip to IsTex deserves a post all its own. Here is Ragga in her Lopi sweater looking excited about IsTex, the mill where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cookiea.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cookiea.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cookiea.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cookiea.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cookiea.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cookiea.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cookiea.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cookiea.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cookiea.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}