The creative behind the craft: Aliona Nova
Today, I’m delighted to be interviewing fellow fiber craft lover, Aliona Nova.
I met Aliona on Instagram via her account @aliona.nova a few months ago, and have been in awe of her fiber creations ever since! So much so, that I’m currently collaborating with Aliona for a giveaway I have running on Instagram. We have some yarn Aliona has hand-spun up for grabs, and the giveaway closes at 5pm Sunday, 26 July 2020, for anyone interested in entering just head to this Instagram post here.
Aliona is a 31-year-old yarn maker and fiber artist who lives in the Lithuanian countryside. Doesn’t that just sound lush?
Before moving out to the country with her family, Aliona graduated from her degree in Law (*jaw drops!*) and worked in an LGBTQ advocacy organisation. Previously, Aliona used to call her fiber gig “Spinner with blue hair”. She found this name a fun anachronism since spinning is a rather old fashioned thing to do, and blue hair is a rather alternative statement.
In addition to yarn and art, Aliona also enjoys gardening, spending time with her kid and cats, and watches (as she says) “an inappropriate amount” of sci-fi tv shows and enjoys experimenting in the kitchen.
I’m so excited to be interviewing Aliona, so I’m going to cut right to the chase.
Aliona, after seeing your creations on Instagram, I just have to ask you first, what made you fall in love with yarn?
“I am a hardcore DIY’er. I like to cook and make things from scratch. And I mean from scratch not in a way where I go to a grocery store and buy my veggies and cook, or go to a hobby shop and purchase whatever supplies I might need, but in a more down to raw ingredients way. I want to grow my own, I want to process my own, I want to learn all the steps and then see if it makes sense for me to skip any of them.
Yarn is great for me because I can take a few skeins and whip up a garment for me or my family members, or some item, a toy, a bag, a belt, anything. But even though it is just an ingredient for most, for me it is also a thing to make from raw materials, it’s not an ingredient, it is the goal, the purpose of something I make. So in short - versatility that I see in yarn making and using makes me love it a lot.”
I honestly think your approach to yarn is so interesting and impressive. As a crocheter, yarn is something I use, and I haven’t really put a lot of thought into how it is made. The “raw materials” side of things as you say. I think that’s a huge reason why I’m so interested in your work. Speaking of which, how did you become a fiber artist in the first place?
“I recently saw a thought on Instagram that I think has since been removed about what a fiber artist is. It is not just someone who crafts and makes, but someone who has a thought, an idea, a story, a concept, a feeling behind their creation. This spoke to me. I felt embarrassed for a second there for calling myself a fiber artist, but I’ve thought about it a lot since then.
Spinning process
One might suggest that yarn is not art in any way. It is too practical, something for everyday use. It is more of a skill, a craft, making yarn is a vacation, it is not art. The truth is definitely not everything I do or make is automatically “fiber art”. I am not automatically a fiber artist, just because I work with fiber and embroider wall hangers people call art. I make a lot of things for sale like seasonal yarns and landscape embroidery which don’t necessarily have a lot of creative or artistic value for me. Some of what I make I think just looks good and people happen to like it so I can make some money from it if I sell it.
On the other hand, I will continue to call myself a fiber artist, but this time with more self-confidence. There is a lot I create as an experiment, to implement an artistic vision. For example I was working on #dystopianyarn. It was very conceptual. I created a world in my head, a world that “ended” and didn’t produce any new commercial yarn, I wanted to feel like those people feel, see yarn like they saw it, make it like they would. In the end, even though I came up with many skeins of perfectly good yarn, the unsuspected user wouldn’t call it special in any way, but to me it is a piece of my art. It was my response to the global pandemic. It was how I processed what happened in the world. These yarn skeins contain much more than their fiber.
#dystopian yarn - upcycled from commercial yarn eaten by moths and hand dyed
#dystopianyarn - made from recycled yarn and not acid treated wool (it keeps some of sheep's natural oils)
#dystopianyarn - spun from recycled yarn and wool from 4 dogs and a cat
I keep derailing your questions and then have to come back to what it initially asked, but I honestly don’t know how I became a fiber artist haha.”
Don’t worry at all, I find it so interesting to hear your interpretations of what the term ‘fiber artist’ means to you, and it certainly has me thinking about it more! It’s amazing how fiber, like art and what we create from fiber, can be interpreted differently by others. To one person it might mean an entirely different universe, yet to another, it is just yarn or something made out of yarn. My mind is blown!
Since I really don’t know anything about how yarn is made, I’m extremely interested in the process. What is the process involved in making yarn?
“To me spinning yarn first of all involved a lot of learning. I don’t have a background in such crafts, I was never good at knitting, sewing, felting, even drawing or styling my clothes. I was always very mediocre at everything even remotely art related. So I read a lot, tried many things, watched YouTube, asked an old lady to show me how to spin (complete fail by the way), bought a bunch of wool (another fail), kept noticing differences in fibers, experimented a lot, tried new things, learned all kinds of side crafts (carding, recycling, dying, embroidering and so on).
I think this process is very different for everyone. I know people who get a spindle, buy a wool roving and just spin. So for them the hand spinning process is quite brief. But because I don’t like skipping steps and I wanted to do everything myself, my process looks something like this:
I get wool and other fibers in their natural color, usually. Sometimes it is a raw wool that needs to be washed (dog hair, raw fleece etc.) and dried.
I dye it or don’t, depending on what I want from it. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to dye everything. For example if I want yarn to be light pink, it is enough to have pink wool, but other ingredients can still be white or other colors, because fibers blend together almost like watercolor. If you mix white and black you will get grey, if you mix all the colors together, you will still get grey and so on.
I recycle yarn scraps I get donated from various fiber artists by hand carding them.
Hand recycling yarn scraps
I then blend fibers together on my drum carder.
When I am happy with my carding, I can spin it on my spinning wheel or felt or do whatever else I want with it. I specialize (I think all spinners have their own preference and this is mine) in spinning singles. When you don’t know much about making yarn it sounds sort of lazy, but there is actually a lot to know about making singles, because it is all about the twist. Under twist it and it will not make a good yarn, over-twist it and it will ruin your garment. I sure ruined a lot of yarn by not knowing what I was doing. But I really feel like singles make the colors I work with pop the best.
Another important step that you rarely see people talk about is yarn washing. Again, maybe it is more important to me because I mostly work with singles. Washing sets the twist on yarn and helps to eliminate kinetic energy from the fiber (you know, that thingie that makes your yarn curl up or twists all kinds of uncomfortable ways when you are trying to work in colorway). There are many things you can do to yarn at this step: felting (alternating heat and alkalinity), straightening (under weights), beating it (being violent to a fresh skein of yarn is a real thing!), relaxing it and so on.”
Wow, I have to admit that does sound like a lot of work. And I absolutely love your video too! There are so many steps involved! Do you happen to have a favourite part of the process? A step that you enjoy doing the most?
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve had pain in my elbows and wrists, especially on my right arm, so I can’t do anything for a long period of time. It is healthy to alternate. I can’t spin for more than a couple hours, same for carding or embroidering. Even if I don’t like the process and I find it rather boring, I still do it to save on money and joints.”
Mixing things up definitely sounds like a good approach! So, I’m curious, what is your favourite type of yarn to make?
“Single-ply yarn with recycled yarn bits.”
Single-ply yarn with recycled yarn bits
So decisive. Love it!
You’ve mentioned embroidery and yarn spinning so far, but I’m also curious about what other hobbies you have?
“I wouldn’t call any of my work with yarn a hobby, because this is literally all I do most of the time when I am home and it pains me to be away from my fiber stash and embroidery hoops and flosses. But I do have hobbies on top of that. I like cooking and baking, especially when it comes to herbs and berries that I grow. For example, did you know that sea-buckthorn tastes a lot like mango or that you can pickle veggies in red currant juice? I like finding these things out.”
I had absolutely no idea, and I love learning this kind of thing from your Instagram stories. I would love to grow my own cooking ingredients, sadly my flat in Edinburgh has no garden so it’s not an option for me, but I love living vicariously through you!
Aliona, you honestly make so many exciting yarn projects, as well as gorgeous yarn for that matter! I am so keen to know what your favourite project has been so far?
“My longest and biggest piece of embroidery is probably my favorite - it is a big landscape of all these mismatched things that my Instagram followers told me to embroider - dinosaur laser fighting a UFO, more UFOs abducting black sheep, a Ferguson tractor, mountains, vagina, northern lights and so on. It also features my favorite cloud yarn, made with husky dog hair.
Biggest baddest piece
When it comes to yarn, I am pretty proud of my summer yarn blend, especially TextuRED and Linen Green. I enjoyed working on bigger quantities (it is a challenge because it is so tempting to just make a lot of unique skeins!) and in a more monochrome fashion. It is also good to update my online store once in a while, which is a challenge in itself, when you prefer the creative part of your work and no administration.”
textuRED
Linen Green
They are all some stunning pieces of fiber art. Gorgeous yarn blends, and I am a huge fan of the UFOs. My Dad’s a massive sci-fi fan as well, so I’ve grown up all my life with sci-fi, and your artwork brings back some fond memories for me. But enough about me!
For anyone reading who hasn’t been turned off by the amount of work involved in making yarn, what advice would you give them when it comes to making their own?
“I would really advise everyone who keeps wool animals. It can feel very satisfying to create yarn with the help of your animal friend. It is also very educational to see how raw fleece becomes yarn, that entire process, all done by hand, without using acids and chemicals they use in a big scale commercial process. We are so detached from it in modern society.”
If I’m honest, I realistically don’t think I’d have the patience to spin yarn myself. So, for those readers like me who definitely aren’t diving into the yarn spinning game anytime soon, how can they purchase your yarn or get in touch with you to recycle their yarn scraps?
I am on Instagram almost all day everyday haha :D @aliona.nova
I also have a website www.alionanova.com which lists most of my services (spinning with your dog hair, creating new yarn with your recycled yarn scraps), yarns and embroidery pieces.
There is also an email, for those weird and special requests :D info@alionanova.com
Okay, now this is the last part of the interview, I promise! I’ve decided to do a quick fire round so we can all get to know you a little bit better. Here we go…
What are you…
Currently watching?
“I am still watching Stargate series (I am a big fan of sci-fi, old and new). Right now I am on Stargate Atlantis and honestly I get anxious thinking that it will soon end and I will be out of my comfort zone again, looking for a good tv show to watch while crafting.”
Currently listening to?
“I have a five year old who is running a dictatorship when it comes to music, so I am listening to what she wants when she is awake. Most of her playlist is my influence though, I like that she listens to a lot of female and LGBTQ artists. We both like Lizzo, Keiynan Lonsdale. I am also a big fan of Amanda Palmer, Janelle Monae, Shortparis, Billie Eilish and European 80’s (there is a difference!).”
Currently reading?
“I am currently reading a book in Lithuanian on management of a food serving business, as I have a dream of opening a fiber studio that would also be a quirky coffee shop, one day.”
Currently making?
“Currently embroidering a Saint Helen mountain, that is actually a dormant volcano.”
Just finished this!
Last one: Fill in the blank… “Yarn makes me ___________ ?”
Ah what a twisted question! You strip me of choices on this one :D shitty yarn makes me complain loud, synthetic yarn makes me cringe, art yarn makes me impressed, chunky yarn makes me feel cosy.
