When the World Spins, Get Out Your Wheel

As a little kid, I made a pilgrimage to Sigrid's spinning wheel every July during the family reunion. There it stood in the corner, bits of wool still attached. I'd seen a demonstration of spinning at our elementary school, so I had an idea of how it worked. I was itching to give it a spin, so to speak.

Sigrid was famous for being the spinner in the neighborhood. Although I can't say definitively, it seems like she was one of the few who had sheep and spun yarn. In a letter from May 1899, she asked "Will you send me a pair of wool cards? I have worn mine out."

She was also a  knitter. In 1920, she wrote, "My job is mostly knitting. I gave away ten pairs of mittens for Christmas but many of them were small."

If you work with yarn, you know its magic. After a day of dealing with the dramas of life, it gives you a space to think. You ease into the rhythm and the stitches untangle your thoughts.

Sigrid's wool carders sit in my office. They're very simple, just rough wood and rows of tiny metal teeth. Like the spinning wheel, they hold decades-old wool. When I see them, I imagine Sigrid going through the process, from shearing and cleaning the fleece to knitting the yarn. And I know that she and I are connected by more than one thread.

Business Ventures

Tosten spent 13 years trading -- sheep, cattle, horses, hides, leather, even butter and cheese. Here is how he got started:

"I went to Lerdahl's Oine (island) to a territory called Aurdal. My father had been there before and bought sheep, so I was to follow in his footsteps, so to speak. They were nice people to have dealings with. They were glad to have us "Saue Hallinger" (sheep Hallings) as they called us, because we brought money into their midst."

"When we had made our purchase, it was to gather our flock and begin the home journey. This was usually the last days in May or the first days in June. First we went by boat, and later we herded the sheep the rest of the way, which was about 12 Norwegian miles (84 American). It was strenuous work. But then we were young and husky and managed nicely. But it took a lot of runnning! It took us usually a week when we had just a small flock. We then got some farmers to herd them together with their cattle until fall when we butchered them and hauled them to town during the winter. Later when our business grew and we had bigger flocks, we would rent meadows and do our own herding, and then in the fall we would gradually move on to different territories and butcher and sell as we moved along. This worked out better."

-- excerpt from Tosten's autobiography, written in 1917