INTERVIEW: Elena of Xolla
Let's have a closer look at the newest addition to the shop, Bauma from Xolla Wool, and enjoy a little chat with the woman behind this exciting project!
One of the best things of running a yarn shop is deciding on what yarns to stock. Sometimes it’s purely a matter of personal preference, sometimes it’s finding that perfect yarn to fill a gap in the shop’s selection and sometimes something Just Feels Right. That was the case with Bauma from Xolla!
Bauma is a 2-ply yarn spun from wool from the endangered native Catalan sheep breed Ripollesa. It has a lovely dry touch and doesn’t itch, even though it’s not soft in the same way a fine-fibre merino wool yarn is. It comes on 50 g balls with 125 m on, making it a DK weight yarn on paper. It easily flexes up towards the worsted category though, thanks to the fullness of the wool and how it blooms and puffs up after a first wash.
The yarn itself is wonderful, but there’s a story behind it that makes me love it even more. To share it with you all, I set out to interview the person behind Xolla Wool: Elena Solier Jansà.
Photo: Elena Solier Jansà
Elena comes from Catalonia, an autonomous community in north-eastern Spain. After studies along with travelling and working abroad, she settled back in her home region together with her partner, where she wanted to evolve her love for textile crafts and local wool:
“Eight years ago, Fran, my partner, studied at the School of Shepherds in Catalonia and started working as a shepherd. By then, I was already knitting, dyeing a lot with natural dyes, and spinning. His work put us in touch with many shepherds and with the reality of Catalan wool: total abandonment of the material. Then we went back to France, and I came across projects like Ardelaine, Laines Paysannes... I mostly knitted with wool from French projects because, at that time in Spain, there was almost nothing (luckily now we are a few, which is great!). French wools were very different from those from craft stores, and I loved them. Being able to knit with natural wool from sheep so close to where I lived… Slowly, I started dreaming and decided to create something where I could work with Catalan wool.”
But as I’m sure any yarn aficionado realises, one doesn’t simply start making yarn in a heartbeat. There were many challenges for Elena, from finding shepherds to work with to identifying mills willing to make the kind of yarn she dreamed about. She soon learned that a good part of Spain’s textile industry was located right in her home area, and so she set out to creating exactly what she dreamed of: a high-quality yarn suitable for hand knitting, spun from that beautiful, local wool that for the past decades has been seen as a by-product with little to no value. There are three old sheep breeds in Catalonia, and the starting point felt obvious:
“The Ripollesa sheep is native to the area where I live, and it made a lot of sense to start working with the wool from this breed. The most notable characteristic of the Ripollesa sheep is that it is covered in freckles. They look like little dairy cows covered in wool! These freckles make their fleeces not 100% white, and it's a bit tricky to standardize the two bases (Fum, light gray and Còdol, medium gray). We need to be very meticulous to get the right percentage of dark wool in the blends.”
The landscape where the sheep graze reflects the quality of their wool. Since winters are cold and dry in Catalonia, and summers can be very hot with draughts, these sheep have little need for a water-proof coat with long hairs. But finding the right fleeces for yarn production doesn’t come without challenges either: there is a limited amount of shearers in the area so Elena often gets just a day's notice before a flock will be shorn. She and her partner sort every fleece by themselves, choosing the finest ones with as little kemp as possible to become Xolla yarns. It’s time consuming and hard work, but pays off in the final product – even if the notion of travelling to different flocks and sorting over 5000 fleeces a year may sound daunting to someone who “just” enjoys knitting!
Photo: Elena Solier Jansà
Apart from creating yarn, Elena is also an appreciated knitwear designer. This final step in adding value to the wool from her home area brings a more creative aspect to the work. Just as I am inspired by the shifting seasons in nature here in the southern Swedish forest where I live, Elena draws on the landscape she inhabits in her designs:
“In general, I incorporate many botanical motifs into my designs. It's not about trying to capture anything specific, I normally don't directly draw inspiration from a specific plant… but in my daily life, I don't see buildings or roads; I see trees and fields. So, I guess it's natural that the view inspires my designs and, definitely, my color choices. The region where I live is painted in earthy, warm tones and I truly believe that the landscape I see has a big influence on my color palette.”
Photo: Elena Solier Jansà
Today, she has more than 20 knitwear patterns available on Ravelry, and her work has been featured in publications such as Laine Magazine, Making Stories, Pom Pom Quarterly and Making. Bauma is the newest of the two qualities Xolla currently produces, and her latest design, Clematis, is knitted in the beautiful shades Rumex and Civada.
Photo: Elena Solier Jansà
I am very, very happy to be the first Swedish yarn shop to stock this beautiful yarn with its rich history, and can’t wait to see what lies in wait for Elena, and what will come next for Xolla!
If you want to dive right into the wonderful, wooly world that Bauma offers, here are a few other pattern suggestions:
Nordic Bloom Vest by Caitlin Hunter
The Weekender by Andrea Mowry
Nocturnal Jumper by Saskie&Co
Granit Cardigan by Katarina Linnhagen
Field Sweater by Camilla Vad
Sunset Sweatshirt by Jessie Maed
Waffle Ridge Scarf by Tif Neilan
I’m knitting a Nordic Bloom Vest (pattern from Laine Nordic Knits!) in a gorgeous, graphic combination of Corb and Fum, and it’s really a joy to work with this yarn. This isn’t my first project in Bauma though, and in April I will have a brand new design coming your way, so stay tuned! Good and wooly things are ahead.
To read more about Elena and Xolla, head on over here:
Website: https://www.xollawool.com/en/home/
Elena’s Ravelry shop: https://www.ravelry.com/designers/elena-solier-jansa
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xollawool/