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%

Ajrakh cloth, a timeless textile art originating from the Sindh region, is one of those artful things that I love. I brought it down to make a beautiful & cozy space to spend a lot of time in, a place I am now calling The Tweed House ( previously known as the tiny house , repurposed for a place to dye and card wool ), but I wasn’t expecting it to be such a beautiful backdrop with the afternoon light streaming in, making short light for a photographic effect I love most. Just sitting on the Ajrakh covered futon, with drop spindle and carders in hand, listening to the dye pot rattle, and sipping a tasty cup of coffee, in the woods … well, it just doesn’t get any cozier than that!

This particular blend is inspired by the traditional madder red and blue of Ajrakh, but also rich browns and golds too, a blend of three colors in equal amounts, which when combined together create more beautiful depth of colors, attempting to blend together the colors of the block prints I love. The trick I am finding is not to blend too much, so that the individual colors are still present and not too fused into each other, so the little bumps of color show in the spinning. I kept track of the dye amounts to get the deep madder red wool, and surprised myself, and the deep gold color does just seem to belong, then finally the turquoise is the gem color that pops, tones it all down and brings all the colors together, and this one is so far my favorite. But there needs to be some refinements before I write the recipe, and you can see Tweed Notes below.

♣   Tweed Notes  ♣

• Fiber: Dyed Merino wool (dye recipes are not yet decided).
• Measured: 1g my own “Madder Red”, 1g my own “Ajrakh Gold” (in Sindh region is achieved from pomegranate peel and/or turmeric), 1g Turquoise Blue.
• What I will do differently next time: I will experiment on achieving a truer yet still bright indigo blue mixing different powdered dyes, but the red and the gold are spot on, because although the individual colors are maybe too bright and not exactly the same as the natural dye used in block printing ajrakh , the combination creates a perfect mixture which, in my opinion, tones all the colors down and gives the feel of the ajrakh.

Down at the tiny (tweed) house, I have been dyeing, carding, spinning, writing tweed recipes, and figuring amounts in micrograms for small tests. These micro batch tests are a perfect job for the hand carders, drop spindle, and mini niddy noddy, which photographs the test batches of handspun so well! I had some left over bits of carded fluff from several tests and decided to blend them all together for this small 10 yard mini skein. The great thing I’m finding, and now getting pretty good at it, is using the Turkish spindle, and once the spindle and cross pieces of the whorl are taken out, the ball is left as a perfect little center-pull package to bring each end together to ply back on to the spindle … I just love that about this spindle. I just love everything about the small tools, really, which seem to insist that I focus with diligence.

The vernal equinox has arrived, and the days are now racing by. Over the long reluctant winter, I’ve been spinning quite a bit, and these finished skeins are my favorite of them all, a colorway I want to spin again and again, this apricot & gold wooly confection. The dominant color mood is like the inevitable spring, through the grey of vernal rain clouds, bursts of amber, gold, and pink, create a rich deep apricot color all mixed together, and seems to define my coloring. Photographing was, as usual, a disappointment, impossible to grasp all the colors uniquely. The skeins have a little bit of a story behind them, and to get the spinning notes right I had to do some guessing, but managed to write them out so I can repeat this in the future. The sky is greying again, we’re expecting rain again, I am so in the mood to knit another sweater, but there is likely not quite enough yardage from this experimental batch, so will do another Apricot Tweed soon.

♣     ♣     ♣

Techy stuff for Apricot Tweed

• See Speed Tweed #2 recipe carded December of 2023. The mix of pinks and amber created a deep apricot or terracotta color.
• After I spun two skeins from the batch, I thought it was too bright for my liking so I put the rest of the unspun wool in the closet for a few months.
• Eventually I re-carded the remaining wool, cut in with Wool Of The Andes Mink Heather Roving– the color of sand, about 100g I think, as well as some other colors I did not keep track of, but definitely some topaz bamboo, which I will do more of next time, for it creates streaks of shimmering gold!
• Yarn is 2ply bulky weight, 400g total.