Naming a color, from inspiration, from memory, from an object, a painting, a piece of cloth — the most the poetic aspect of design.  The name damask itself refers to a type of weave in cloth, and is made in a range of colors, the color I am searching for is a traditional silk damask color — a warm vintage rose with a hint of mauve, nearly like the botanical painting from Pierre-Joseph Redouté, the Rosa Damascena Celsiana. I fell in love with the color when I was gathering and over-dyeing colors for the  Redouté Roses design,  which was inspired originally from his botanical illustrations. But honestly, the color in my mind now, is the memory of a little silk scarf, which I put on my niece to wear for the design’s photo session, which I inadvertently gave to her as I forgot to ask for it back, and it is lost to a wonderful memory now. Yes, the sentiment of that exact color is what I have long been looking for.  I’ve arrived at the dye recipe which I’ve left in the Blending Notes below.  

Can either be spun up in a solid, or made into a tweed blend, which involves more than one color, so I am refining my recipe techniques.  I think in my personal color palette, I will name this color recipe “Damask”.  These three are my final experiments  to arrive at the color, testing a blending format that I will apply to the rest of my tweed palette, of colors I love most. The spun tweed results are in the same order in photos above as described in the notes below: #1 Double Tweed, #2 Analogous Tweed, and #3 Simple Tweed.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

1. Damask solid color recipe: Blended from 1% dye solutions of: 33.3% Jacquard Hot Fuchsia, 33.3% Jacquard Golden Ochre, and 33.3% Dharma Antique Mauve (see below notes). 
2. Double Tweed Blend (above 1st of 3): 50% color “damask” solid color wool, and 16.6% each of solid dyed wool in Golden Ochre, Hot Fuchsia, and Antique Mauve. I think I like this the best because the overall effect is truer to my solid dye recipe for the color Damask.
3. Analogous Tweed Blend (2nd of 3): 33.3% each of three damask shades very similar (I used tests #1, #3, and #4 )  The result does not have enough definition to make it worth the fuss of dyeing three similar colors just to blend them all together.  As it is so close to a completely homogenized color, if I want a solid dyed color, I would just dye a solid Damask from my color recipe. 
4. Simple Tweed Blend (3rd of 3): 33.3% each of solid dyed Golden Ochre, Hot Fuchsia, and Antique Mauve. This is the easiest by far, and very festive with the most contrasts, and I use this method for an informal and quick tweed blend if I’m not attempting a reliable color match. 

• • All dyes are dyed with depth-of-shade 1ml of 1% dye solution to 1g of wool. 
  • The actual dye brands are Jacquard Acid Dye in Golden Ochre and Hot Fuchsia, and Dharma Acid Dye in Antique Mauve. 

♣ Final Results ♣ 

I have decided upon the final solid color of Damask, just did not spin it up solid, instead I used the amount I dyed in the tweed experiments. From this color I arrived at final tweed preparation, what I am calling Double Tweed. The Double Tweed is compound — comprised of the two parts; a minimum of 50% of the blend is the main color which is its namesake, in this case Damask.  The other “half” is equal amounts of solid dyed wools that are the same three dye colors used to get Damask. The end result I am naming is Damask Double Tweed. Of the three in the Blending Notes above, I like the Double Tweed results best because the spun yarn stays closest to the main color while still having the contrasts of the different colors of wool, which I describe in the notes.

Utterly fascinated with Eri silk cocoon cakes, they are so easy to fluff up into a generous handful of spinnable fiber, or can be pulled into a circle shape, broke through the center and stretched into a hoop of continual strands to be spun from or cut into lengths (I learned this from some instructional Longthread Media spinning videos using silk hankies). Even more I love how the cocoons are harvested after the moth emerges, therefore known as Ahimsa Silk, also as Peace Silk. One thing I want to note; the processed silk roving is radically different than spinning the silk strands from cocoons. The silk cocoons have the strands all wound around and hold together, even “stick” together in spinning far more than the silk that is processed into roving, as well as shorter fibers. It is raw silk which is not as smooth and has little slubs, the finished spinning has a more matte finish, and therefore in blending adds much more texture than the processed silk roving would.

As combed cotton roving is something I just do not feel committed to learn to spin by itself, because it takes specialized skill, if not equipment, but mostly because pure cotton handspun yarn is not something I knit with, and I can’t imagine weaving with it, yet like silk, I am learning the benefits of adding it to blends.

Of course, downy soft alpaca, one of my favorites, giving a fuzzy soft halo to the finished yarn, and exquisite warmth, and added to the others for a more complex blend in this sample checks all the boxes for me.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Alpaca: Alpaca roving, in color fawn, approx 1/3.
• Silk: Eri Silk cocoon cakes, approx 1/3.
• Cotton: Combed cotton roving, in color mauve, approx 1/3.

Bamboo top fiber is extremely silky, and in my opinion even more than actual silk, which is to say that it is even slicker, even more delicate, softer, glossier, and truth be told, I could not even attempt to spin it by itself. Flax short fiber (tow) roving is really rough, really tough, stiff, woody, and the fibers do not stick to each other, so again, I have not had much success in trying to spin flax either. Combed cotton top is… well, cottony, but insanely short fibers which do not stick together when dry, and just like the other two, I really couldn’t even try to spin it. However, with the three together I am striving to find a balance, a spinnable fluff that can be made into a beautiful practical yarn, that brings texture and color depth into the yarn. I do believe that blending fibers such like these three plant fibers make a very beautiful blend which brings together the best in all three, even though I personally could not even attempt to spin the individual fibers. Believe me, this particular combination proves to me that blending really has its virtues!

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Flax: Flax roving from Laughing Lamb Fibers , natural undyed, approx 33%
• Cotton: Combed Cotton Roving Top from Living Dreams Yarn, in color Curry, approx 33%
• Bamboo: Bamboo top from Paradise Fibers, in color Topaz, approx 33%

I just opened a drawer and it was there, 600 grams of fluffy washed handspun wool, tucked in the back of a drawer of other unaccounted for handspun skeins, and completely forgotten. When did I spin this? Sometime last winter I think. Right, I checked my photo files and apparently, I was a carding maniac last January blending up huge batts of different wools from my bins, in vain hope to downsize, but more honestly attempting to rid myself of the evidence of a long spell of wool gathering. I was making big random batts, not concerned about the results. What is so interesting is how this yarn looks different in varied light, sometimes denim blue, sometimes sea foam blue; a lot of white, different tones of greens and blues; turquoise, mallard green, grass green sky blue, but I think it is the navy blue which greys it down, and the amount is enough wool for a big wool sweater. This is what life looks like when one is a process spinner; one spins the yarn, and then forgets about it.

Wool and silk are winners . . . cotton and wool are winners . . . and cotton and silk are winners . . . so wouldn’t it go without saying that wool, silk, and cotton would be amazing? Ever since studying the Longthread Media instruction video Spinning Wild & Unusual Silk I’ve just been unleashed into new territory.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Wool: Merino Top Wool from Paradise Fibers, color Terracotta, approx 33%
• Cotton: Combed Cotton Roving Top from Living Dreams Yarn, color Mauve, approx 33%
• Silk: Eri Silk roving from Living Dreams , color natural yellow, approx 33%

Moving swiftly over the calendar days of Summer, one by one I have been pairing up combinations, and have settled on some favorites, but now I’m on to blends of three different fibers & colors. As for the blends with the flax short fibers, I will have to further experiment, because although they create a rustic feel, there is a scratchiness, almost like guard hairs, occasionally a stray stiff flax fiber will not spin into the single but stick out and assert itself. The question is; how will this be after washing, and maybe it is fine for some things, which of course, I will have to explore. The other question is; how is it with all of the different colors I’m using (which the camera is just not picking up) the allover effect that I keep creating is variations of terracotta color in the finish?

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Wool: Merino Top from The Spinnery , color Olive, approx 33%
• Silk: Mulberry silk roving from The Woolery, color Orchid Pink, approx 33%
• Flax: Flax roving from Etsy, in color Rust, approx 33%

Would never have guessed it, but here I am suddenly a cotton and silk spinning fanatic, and now that I’ve discovered great sources for both dyed cotton roving and Eri (peace) silk. I learned from a Long Thread Media instructional video Spinning Exotic Blends that spinning silk sometimes is easier to spin and gives uniformity to the single, when the silk fibers are cut to the length of the other fibers in the blend, so I tried again snipping off the silk into pieces the same length as the cotton, then blended the two together on the carders. This plied yarn was extremely soft but has no spring, completely slack, bringing out the best of both fibers.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Silk: Eri Silk roving from Living Dreams , color natural yellow, approx 50%
• Cotton: Dyed Combed Cotton Roving Top from Living Dreams Yarn, color Azure, approx 50%

In June I explored colorful wool tweeds and now sampling an array of non-wool spinning fibers … carding a few grams, spinning, plying, photographing, with more yet to come. I am already narrowing, already thinking about what is coming next; spinning whole skeins instead of a few grams, writing the recipes carefully so that I can replicate, then at last, knitting the yarn into something to showcase the best of the best.

Cotton is one of those things that I’ve put off learning to spin, for it is such a short staple, and in my experience extremely difficult to spin with a suspended spindle. I did try before and gave up, and so I’m trying it in a blend and am feeling encouraged that this time it will work. This sample is dyed cotton roving blended with mulberry silk, a little difficult to spin with a suspended spindle, but what a great pairing, and so soft.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Silk: Mulberry silk roving from Paradise Fibers, color Malabo Green, approx 50%
• Cotton: Dyed Cotton Roving from Living Dreams Yarn, color Curry, approx 50%

Deep amber silken bamboo and fuchsia flax, the colors and the textures are meant to be together. I had a feeling I was going to love this one, as I am smitten with the flax blended into silken fiber, it really is a great balance; the bamboo is very much like silk, and as the colors were leaping out at me to put together, topaz bamboo with fuchsia flax, well, I could not resist. I made a double sample of four punies (litte rolags) instead of only two, because I really wanted to look forward to my whorl’d news and feel exquisite spinning a beautiful color blend. Although the color combo is spot on for me, this pairing was not easy to spin on the Turkish spindle, as bamboo is extremely slick and doesn’t really have any grip like silk does, and neither does the short flax tow fiber, but it is a completely vegan fiber, I’ll give it that.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Bamboo: Bamboo top from Paradise Fibers, in color Topaz, approx 50%
• Flax: Dyed flax roving from Paradise Fibers, in color BonBon, approx 50%

My summer of blending is relaxing, evokes my curiosity, and it is just the thing I need; early mornings I walk down to the tiny house studio, and start in on a new project, sampling, spinning, photographing. In the beautiful squinting short light which comes through the barely open shade, sun drenching the Ajrakh against a shadow, and illuminating the object against the colorful block print, it is quite evident that the photographing is the part of documenting that I enjoy most. My mind is in a state of buoyancy, allowing myself to feel like a rank beginner again, it is liberating. I spend the morning, then again, the afternoon, long pauses from chores and distractions of the household. Its just me and the creative muse, together, hunkered down.

I love how Eri silk cocoons are harvested after the moth emerges, is produced using a more sustainable and ethical method, also known as “peace silk”, and judging by its sudden availability for spinners, very sought-after for this reason alone. I love how utterly ancient flax is, it is perhaps my favorite textile fiber of all, and I can’t say enough about how I want to explore flax more, and how I’ve been playing around with yarn for absolutely decades, but have never spun flax, and never spun silk (well, not really) as each of the fibers alone are much more demanding. The flax short fibers blended with the Eri Silk, it is absolute perfection, the softness and binding influence of the silk, married with the rustic, short, stiff and lofty influence of the flax tow, together it is fairly easy to spin and the result after plying is exquisite. Soft and yet rustic, I love it and will have to spin a much larger project with this combination, because it is my favorite so far of my experiments.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Silk: Eri Silk roving from Living Dreams , color natural red, approx 50%
• Flax: Flax roving from Carr Park Artisans, in color cinnamon, approx 50%

Carding together one pairing after another, some brilliant, some not so great, going through my fiber stash, excited to discover. For this one I settled on undyed completely stiff, dull flax tow, with brilliantly colorful dyed saree silk. At first I thought, no way, there’s no way these two fibers will come together beautifully. Well, I surprised myself, once I was finished carding.

The saree silk threads can be found in this form which are the strands of silk that are cut from the looms used in the saree industry, but also are available as carded into roving or batts, as well as cut into fine ribbons, and are widely available to spinners and crafters these days. This is the former variety, the loom threads, and which are wadded up with some very long, some impossibly tangled, and the blend of colors are dizzying.

I cut the lengths– giving a try once again to the lesson taught in Spinning Exotic Blends from Longthread Media — and I simply picked out of the carders the larger tangled snarls. The flax well, it is a different source, still the fibers are more organized than my other flax tow, but I’m not sure if it is tow, or just flax top. At this point I will just assume it is well combed flax tow. Overseeing the marriage of these two on the carders was a sense of complete disconnect, that melted into a relaxed sense of possibility when I started to spin with a bit of difficult on my Turkish spindle, very nubby and the flax feeling like horsehair, but then I switched to the spinning wheel and it worked like a dream, smoothly blending the fibers into a more uniform tweed single. I ended up winding the little sample back on to the Turkish spindle mostly for photographic reasons, and then plied it with wheel too. I would like to experiment further with this pairing, but wet-spinning so that I can get a finer more uniform single without the stiff flax fibers flying about.

In hindsight I should have added more saree silk proportionally, for even though it dominated in color, it is such a diminutive fiber texturally next to the bristly flax tow, and the end result was stiff and not at all supple. Or maybe, like linen, the flax just needs a few washings to soften up. It wasn’t an easy match, an unlikely pairing which in the end, one is simply left to judge for themselves.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Recycled Saree Silk: Recycled Sari Silk Threads from Paradise Fibers, color mix Spectrum, approx 50%
• Flax: “flax roving” from Laughing Lamb Fibers , approx 50%

Drifting through my fiber stash, rapt with discovery of blending different fibers, like seaweed and flax, silk and nettle, exploring new combinations of fiber together, learning, proving, questioning, documenting, sensing, interpreting… improving. I mean, what else is there to do?

Pairing ancient fibers of silk and nettles: As for the silk fiber, I am now interested in a thing which is called “peace silk” which harvests the silk cocoons only after the moth has emerged, safely and happily flying off on its rightful life adventure, and therefore a thing which I will continue to spin — however, I had accumulated a bit of conventional silk roving back when I was setting up my fiber studio in 2020, stashing a crazy amount of intriguing fibers to spin, what I was thinking at that time I forget, but I am finally getting around to opening the stash with curiosity.

Giant Himalayan Stinging Nettle is similar to flax and hemp, considered a “bast” fiber, and the use of which most certainly is ancient. It is readily available in long fiber top, but what I had apparently done is purchase an amount of shredded chopped up nettle fiber, that I can liken to flax tow… or pillow stuffing. The fiber I have is unruly and I had no idea how to spin, but I figured I should find out. After a little research I discovered this is called “cottonized”, perhaps so that it blends better with other short fibers, as the premium nettles top is extremely long. I should have bought the top, but at the time, I didn’t know there was Giant Himalayan Stinging Nettle top, had only yet seen this cottonized version.

This blend is another odd couple for certain, combining a very rough and tough nettle plant fiber which is short and seemingly shredded and twiggy, with a beautiful slick long graceful green mulberry silk. I had just watched a Longthread Media instruction video Spinning Exotic Fiber Blends and so I thought I would try what the lesson suggested, cutting the longer fiber (silk) to the same length as the shorter fiber (in this case, the cottonized nettle) to bring more uniformity into different staple length, but let me say, it wasn’t until the spinning singles started to break a lot, and I decided that was probably not such a great idea. Also I tried a thing which is called “wet spinning” where I simply dip my fingers in water, which made the stiff nettle fibers relax and spin better, with far less breakage. The effect of the cottonized nettle looks silk noil, very rustic and beautiful, but is a bit scratchy, with stiff fibers sticking out, so I don’t think I will explore this cottonized nettle further. Figuring out each fiber blend’s characteristics is quite an adventure, oh, and next time I won’t cut the silk.

As I am finding myself with an apparent surplus of carded rolags to spin on my array of Turkish spindles, and so I have gotten into the habit of spinning while watching the 6 o’clock news, a thing which I am humorously referring to now, as Whorl’d News.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Silk: Mulberry silk roving from Paradise Fibers, Malabo Green, approx 50%
• Nettles: Cottonized nettle fiber I don’t have any idea where I picked it up, but it is undyed, and I used approx 50%

This summer I embrace being a fiber arts dilettante, I am allowing myself time to explore new facets I never before took the time to, finding myself returning to my hand spindles and hand carders, noticing a theme of sorts, blending exotic New World fibers with rustic Old World fibers. In this sample I’ve discovered the odd couple thrives together with slick silken white Seacell, a fiber derived from seaweed, and very rough and tough dyed flax tow which is the short and often shredded fibers left over when refining the longer sought-after flax fibers, is frankly quite an ancient fiber to spin. Let me put it this way ; the seacell is far too slick and the flax tow is far too rough for each of them to be spun well by themselves, but carded together 50/50 they bring harmony and create a surprisingly beautiful yarn, which is both silken and soft, but strong and still a little rustic. The long strong fibers of the Seacell hold the short flax pieces together, and the flax adds bulk and loft from the stiff fibers. Who would have thought? My plan for July-into-August is to delve into unlikely combinations like this, spinning on my spindles the small samples of different, as I happen to have collected a lot of heavy rustic flax tow dyed in different colors as well as silk and the man-made silk-like fibers — just look at them all available these days. In closing, this yarn spun with the seacell and flax is one I will be experimenting with.

♣ Blending Notes ♣ 

• Seacell: Seacell top roving from Walnut Farm Designs, undyed, approx 50%
• Flax: Dyed flax roving from Paradise Fibers, in color BonBon, approx 50%