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plant fibers

Unique plant fibres!

Emma Cross

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Location: Vancouver Island, BC

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posted 6 years ago

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Hi folks, I am wondering what has been the most unique plant fibre you've seen, either working with it yourself, or seen in anothers' work.

I've seen videos of folks using blackberry, which would be tricky (those thorns) but satisfying.

Liza Stallsmith

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posted 6 years ago

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My daughter has spun milkweed silk mixed with stripped peacock feathers on her drop spindle. She was always into trying new things.

"The world is divided into people who do things, and people who get credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class, there is far less competition."
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Emma Cross

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Location: Vancouver Island, BC

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posted 6 years ago

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Thats amazing Liza! I have access to peacock feathers often in the summer but never thought to do anything like that.

Liza Stallsmith

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posted 6 years ago

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My daughter's favorite way to use the feathers was mixed with wool, because it is just easier that way.

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Xisca Nicolas

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Location: La Palma (Canary island) Zone 11

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posted 6 years ago

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Does she cut all the sides and remove the central stem?
I would not have thought about this, wahoo!

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Emma Cross

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Location: Vancouver Island, BC

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posted 6 years ago

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I would love to see a picture of the finished fiber if she has some lying around :)

Liza Stallsmith

Posts: 51

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posted 6 years ago

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To my knowledge she pulled the Fluffy feather backward to make it come off the center stem. My daughter is all grown up now. I will talk to her this weekend to double check this fact and to see if she knows where and if any of her projects are still around were I could get pictures of them. Sorry I can't be more informative, but this is something she did and showed me the end results. I remember my reaction as that is way cool, and I would of never thought of doing that!

"The world is divided into people who do things, and people who get credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class, there is far less competition."
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Emma Cross

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Location: Vancouver Island, BC

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posted 6 years ago

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Let her know that she is inspiring people!

Lynora Stallsmith

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posted 6 years ago

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Hi all! I'm Liza's daughter. Basically I just stripped the long fibers off of the quill of the feather and spun them in with some black wool. It's was super fun and incandescent in the right light. Not sure where that yarn disappeared to or if I ever knit it. It's been a long time. Never tried washing it. Always wondered if it would held up to that.

Mussa Gladden

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Location: Adelaide, Australia

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posted 6 years ago

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Well, remember the story of the girl and her brothers-turned-to swans? Old traditions of Russia had also held nettle cloth in very high esteem.

Note, however, it's nowhere near as torturous to make nettle into cloth and wear it as that fairy tale (and those Horrible Histories!) suggests. Nettle mostly only stings for a little while, while it's fresh. Unless it's a very tough and old stalk, in which case there might be honest-to-God spikes on it, but that's not stinging so much as making holes in your fingers.

Alas, we don't have anywhere near cloth-amounts of nettle where we live now - and where we lived before, I never knew you could make anything but soup with it!

Edit: Ah, I am a noob... Some people know far more about it than I do! Oh, well, second most exotic I know, though not plant-based, is dog's wool (apparently, much better spinning than cat's combing-outs), but that's even less likely to surprise anyone

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Emma Cross

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Location: Vancouver Island, BC

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posted 6 years ago

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Nettles has to be my favorite plant of all (in fact, had nettle and potato soup for dinner tonight!) I've spun the fibers in the past, which has a neat experience. It definitely has shorter strands than wool (which as far as I know goes for all plant based fibers?). Comes out kind of like hemp, but softer.

Dog and cat hair is very exotic! I admire folks that do the work of collecting the fur to spin it!

Timothy Markus

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posted 6 years ago

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I get a half pound of poodle fur every couple of months from my daughter's miniature poodle. That's for hair about 1.5" long. How long would you want it to be to be worth spinning?

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Ryan M Miller

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posted 6 years ago

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Two interesting fibers that are readily available to me are milkweed bast (from the stems) and basswod/linden bark. Basswood bark was historically used to make a course cloth similar to jute in Japan called shinafu. The one place where I have actually seen someone try to work with milkweed bast was on this blog link here:
http://inconsequentialblogger.blogspot.com/2014/04/processing-spinning-and-knitting.html?m=1

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Liza Stallsmith

Posts: 51

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posted 6 years ago

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I had a friend who gathered and processed dog hair all the way through to the finished knitted hat. It was beautiful, but was so warm that no one here could actually wear it. It was quite a conversation piece though.

"The world is divided into people who do things, and people who get credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class, there is far less competition."
Dwight Morrow

Mussa Gladden

Posts: 14

Location: Adelaide, Australia

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posted 6 years ago

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Timothy Markus wrote:How long would you want it to be to be worth spinning?

From what I know of spinning (and, having spun only 3 balls or so, I'm no expert!), the longer it is, the easier it is to spin - but the more experienced spinners can do wonders (i.e., thread) even with short fiber.
The fiber table I've found starts with 2 inches, so 1.5 inches seems doable (and fine wool is usually shorter than coarse wool, anyway), If in doubt - try a little bit, make a small knitted swatch and try rubbing, stretching and washing it. That should give you some idea of how much it shrinks and how much it falls apart.

If that doesn't work or you're not feeling that adventurous, mix it with something longer - typically, sheep, but it's not a law

- and then you can spin anything. Even cat hair, which is not spinnable, as a rule. I'm sure something posh (like angora or cashmere) was also only spun with usual sheep's wool, on account of being hair that doesn't hold together if it's spun by itself, but I can't remember or find what it was.

I think an encyclopaedia we have says you can spin pineapple leaves (after you've done retting them mercilessly). That bit of information (and a few others, equally ludicrous) was what sold to me the idea of buying that ancient encyclopaedia set that takes half a shelf all by itself. You just don't see such things in new editions

"Oh for a book and a shady nook..."
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