Weird Hoard Fiber Arts Stuff

John Warren wrote:
Oh yeah... AND the fact that it was pretty cheap when I stumbled across it too.  There is no telling what kind of weird eclectic hoard I would have if I had more financial resources throughout various phases of my life.

I have a tendency to do that with my knowledgebase and skillsets as well.  Do I have any practical need to know how to grow silkworms and harvest their silk? No. Did that stop me from watching hours of youtube videos about sericulture several weeks ago? No.  

I feel that in my soul. The bit about having a weird eclectic hoard. I have a decent enough hoard of stuff that's "kinda weird", and has too many odd plastic bits or weird metal shapes in it, but that's because I might have been a magpie or corvid in a different life.

I also have the need to know odd things. I spent a great deal of time late last month researching "How to preserve meat without canning" and now know too many ways to hang and salt/sugar cure meat. Not that I have a plethora of raw meat hanging around unless you count the poultry, but they tend to store better while alive. If I happen to suddenly come across a large dead animal that's of decent quality to eat, I know what to do. You never know when an emergency like that might happen!

I also looked into silkworms not that long ago a few years back. I had a couple of mulberry trees that are busily being spread all over my small property. I had heard that settlers raised silkworms in Utah and that it was considered a reasonable way to spend time back when they were "settling", so did my reading and watching to see if it was plausible. Haven't come to a decision about it, but am probably where you are silkworm-knowledge-wise.

John Warren wrote:And is the full knowledge of how absurd that all is preventing me from actually considering devoting a certain amount of land and energy to giving it a try? (At least on SOME level?)  Lol - I think you know the answer... but before I started considering that, I stumbled across one of those people who is literally "growing furniture" by putting forms on tree branches as they grow.  So right now I'm thinking I'm going to use a section of land to experiment with some ideas and techniques around that general concept and probably won't go TOOO crazy overboard with the mulberry trees.

Anyway, all that is to say that I don't think there is anything weird about your banana silk at all! Though I would love to know if there are any particular use cases where you actually do plan/expect to use things like the samples you mentioned?  (Because I'm curious, not because I'm judging AT ALL.)

There was a thread of some sort, somewhere (probably Permies, but not positive) that was a bunch of people talking about growing trees into furniture. It made me thoughtful, but it would require me to come up with some method of leaving myself a long-term note so I wouldn't clear away the tree/shrub being shaped in an interesting way. I haven't figured out how I would do the note-leaving, so will continue to consider some sort of garden bench or table of whatever made from a living tree as an interesting thought experiment, but not really possible right now. Or I may have started that and will be surprising myself with it later. You never know. Well, *I* never know.

The assorted plant and animal fibers I ended up with were intended, generally, for a  recurrent class in fiber arts that I taught while I was active in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). Most people spend their lives very happy not knowing that there were folks back in the long ago times, that would spin string/thread/yarn and make assorted things out of something Not Cotton and Not Polyester (I have yet to find a living polyester in the wild and have almost given up the search). I searched the far corners of the world and found places where I could buy qiviut, nettle fiber, assorted wools from different types of sheep, assorted plant fibers being combed and processed. Raw flax was surprisingly hard to find. I still have those samples - I would have a representative sample that could be handled during the class and people could pay a small fee for a notebook that had samples of fibers, weaving techniques, and lace making styles so that they could understand how different fibers, weaves, laces, etc. were different from what they could find at the corner drug store or local fabric and yard goods seller.

Because we were all "starving college students" or poor military folks and didn't have much spare cash, I didn't have a lot of takers on the sample books and still have the samples I gathered ... 30 years ago. I'm sure I'll do something with them. Eventually. I really wouldn't know how to lay my hands on most of the samples right this minute as they're all tucked away somewhere. I know the silk threads got put with my sewing supplies. I think the nettle fiber is with some jute I was experimenting with and the banana silk - very heavy in weight, not as drapey as you might think and not a lot of tensile strength in my opinion - had been made into a crocheted scarf, but was too heavy and just not ...right ... it was frogged and balled up and disappeared. It might be in one of the Totes Of Miscellaneous Craft Supplies or the Tote Connected to the demi-plane of Weird Stuff.

The assorted fabric samples, lacework and trims are in the fabric stash and will be put to some use eventually. I have some thoughts about doing something with the large piece of embroidered boiled wool and maybe making something very interesting with some of the other pieces. At times I had to purchase a substantial amount of (whatever), so there's probably enough for a few Interesting Things, once I'm in the mindset to sort and play.

Everything has a use, eventually. If nothing else, it burns and can warm us briefly.

Lol, it definitely sounds like we're kindred spirits!

Kristine Keeney wrote:
There was a thread of some sort, somewhere (probably Permies, but not positive) that was a bunch of people talking about growing trees into furniture. It made me thoughtful, but it would require me to come up with some method of leaving myself a long-term note so I wouldn't clear away the tree/shrub being shaped in an interesting way. I haven't figured out how I would do the note-leaving, so will continue to consider some sort of garden bench or table of whatever made from a living tree as an interesting thought experiment, but not really possible right now. Or I may have started that and will be surprising myself with it later. You never know. Well, *I* never know.

Yeah, I've seen 1 or maybe 2 threads on here about it.  I don't think I remember anyone (or at least not many?) from Permies actually doing it themselves, but they were sharing pictures and links to others who had done it.

There's a version where you grow it and the tree becomes a living bench/table/gazebo/whatever, and then there was a guy in the UK (I think?) who was starting to grow chairs, ceiling light fixtures, and dining tables and then cutting them off so they could be sold. The tree itself would be coppiced so he could begin again, and I imagine the customers end up with a quality product which should outlive them if it is all done properly and cared for.

Pros and cons to both versions.  And I am fascinated by the idea of trying out both potentially.   But since I have certain health issues that keep me from working a typical job and am looking at ways to potentially make money from my work on our land - but would also find it difficult to *consistantly* maintain the level of work required to depend on farmer's markets or similar endeavors for income... there is part of me wondering if I could actually be physically capable of managing a "crop" of different furniture pieces.  Plus I'd get to spend some time designing them and figuring out how to make forms form them and such. (Both "get to" and have to if it was going to work lol.)  I do have other plans for how I can get an income going as well so it isn't like I'm betting it all on growing a big plot of desk lamps or anything, just something I'm seriously considering pursuing as a part of it all.

I can see it being easy to forget if you just did one tree or something.  I'd almost certainly have the same problem you described.  But if I was trying to work on plots of them then I just have to remember which trees are being formed into what.

Kristine Keeney wrote:


The assorted plant and animal fibers I ended up with were intended, generally, for a  recurrent class in fiber arts that I taught while I was active in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism).

I had never heard of the SCA before, but that sounds delightful!

Even just the phrase "creative anachronism" is a pretty cool idea in itself.

Kristine Keeney wrote:
(I have yet to find a living polyester in the wild and have almost given up the search)

I'm pretty sure that you have to first find multiple monoesters and then either seed them all into the same field together or graft multiple varieties onto a single monoester rootstock (If you ever do this, see if you can find a variety which doesn't fair horribly in hot weather and isn't prone to static buildup, then use this one as your rootstock.)

Kristine Keeney wrote:


I searched the far corners of the world and found places where I could buy qiviut, nettle fiber, assorted wools from different types of sheep, assorted plant fibers being combed and processed. Raw flax was surprisingly hard to find. I still have those samples - I would have a representative sample that could be handled during the class and people could pay a small fee for a notebook that had samples of fibers, weaving techniques, and lace making styles so that they could understand how different fibers, weaves, laces, etc. were different from what they could find at the corner drug store or local fabric and yard goods seller.

That is REALLY cool.

I suddenly want to know what each of those are like, how they feel, how strong or delicate they might be, soft or course, what different contexts they may be useful - or for some of them whether it is mostly a simple matter of using the cheapest/most abundant materials available and not necessarily selecting for a needed quality...

That DOES surprise me about the flax.

I was looking at seeds on Etsy recently, just because there are a bunch or plants on there I never would have thought of and I came across flax and ended up adding it to my list of things to think about getting some of next year... even if it is just to toss some in with a covercrop mix for additional variety and then see what comes of it.

When I saw that there were different colors of flax that got me curious... but I don't know if that is just the bloom or if any other part of the plant was different.  

Kristine Keeney wrote:
I know the silk threads got put with my sewing supplies. I think the nettle fiber is with some jute I was experimenting with and the banana silk - very heavy in weight, not as drapey as you might think and not a lot of tensile strength in my opinion - had been made into a crocheted scarf, but was too heavy and just not ...right ... it was frogged and balled up and disappeared. It might be in one of the Totes Of Miscellaneous Craft Supplies or the Tote Connected to the demi-plane of Weird Stuff.

So, banana silk... I guess that is made from the fibers in the leaves?? I hadn't heard of that one before, but despite your... uh... less than glowing review of the material, I'm intrigued. I've got a couple of other reasons for that one in particular to pique my interest though.

So my oldest daughter is just a couple weeks shy of 9 years old and has spent the past couple of weeks trying to dig a "pond" in the absolutely rock hard dirt of our backyard when it isn't 100 degrees outside.

To be honest, her selected location is horrible, but she was excitedly talking to me about concepts like rainwater catchment and asking about how to seel the hole when she's done, and then whether we'd have to (and if we could) buy clay or if the thing she'd seen a couple years before on YouTube where you can dig some dirt up, mix it around in water and separate out the clay would work.... she's wanting to do all of this partly so she and her little sister have a convenient place to splash around in the water, but she was also talking about how it would mean that the dogs and cats and chickens and any other animals we got wouldn't ever run out of water and we wouldn't have to worry as much about making sure to fill up their bowls.

I've already been thinking about more longterm plans for trying to make a pond (or multiple?)... but definitely not in the backyard lol, and I had not mentioned that OR any of those other concepts to her when she started working on it.

So while eventually she's going to need to come to terms with the reasons for why her choice of location isn't going to work as well as another would, I have been super proud of her for attempting the project.  (Next time, maybe she should ask before trying to dig a massive hole in the yard though...)

Anyway, this does actually tie back to your banana silk scarf...

A couple of days ago, she was telling me that she had talked to momma to let her know that she'd like to learn to crochet and hopefully get some supplies.  

I didn't think about it at the time, but now I am wondering if she had some specific thing(s) in mind she "needs" to make, because when that girl asks for crafting supplies and you turn your back on her for a bit... well, there's really no telling what may come of it. And I love it. But depending on her plans she may be expecting miles of yarn or something lol.

Anyway, this morning, we were out in the woods with her younger sister talking about some of the stuff we are hoping to plant and I think the younger one said something about a banana. Then the older one said, "No, Bean, (nickname) dad says we can't grow bananas around here."

But I was able to jump in and say, "Well actually, I found out recently that there are at least some varieties that we are supposed to be able to grow here! So we're definitely planning to give that a shot once we get things more ready for them!"

So now that you're talking about crocheting with banana silk... I'm thinking to myself that me and my girls are gonna have to sit down together tomorrow and watch us some YouTube videos about how that stuff is made.

And JUST MAYBE I'll end up with a 9 (or 10+ by the time it happens?) year old girl making her own banana silk to crochet her own scarf, or superhero costume, or some critical part to an invention we can only begin to imagine.

Or... maybe she'll decide she's better off waiting for mulberry trees to grow and working with silkworms! Lol.

Kristine Keeney wrote:

Everything has a use, eventually. If nothing else, it burns and can warm us briefly.

Lol, well, yeah, I suppose there is always that.

Though if you do ever find those monoester and polyester plants, you may want to avoid burning those for warmth until you're especially desperate - and even then avoid the smoke, I hear it's no good.

John said," There's a version where you grow it and the tree becomes a living bench/table/gazebo/whatever,

/
Is this the thread?:

https://permies.com/t/51074/art/Grow-chairs

I have also read about tree shaping.

These threads are about growing a shed, playhouse, and other living structures:

https://permies.com/t/205585/woodlland/Grow-shed
https://permies.com/t/28212/art/woven-sapling-playhouses
https://permies.com/t/6626/art/possibilites-living-willow-structures

Gavin Munro, a British designer, is growing chairs and other pieces of furniture out of trees. His farm is in Derbyshire, UK.



There is also a forum for Living Art:

https://permies.com/f/269/living-art

Kristine Keeney wrote:

If I happen to suddenly come across a large dead animal that's of decent quality to eat, I know what to do. You never know when an emergency like that might happen!

Neighbor calls, "heard a shot, found a dead buck in the drive, gutted it, gotta get to an island. Will you deal with it - good meat there!" Hubby takes the lawn tractor and trailer and collects it, we use the bucket on our bigger tractor to hoist it, I learn *real fast* how to skin and cut up a deer and get it into a cooler to "hang" except it more or less had to "heap".

So you never know what skills you might need. Neighbor thought I knew how to do this - I process various poultry all the time - but no, I'd never done a deer. I just knew there were scent glands to avoid touching!  And I knew it was quality meat that was worth saving!

Anne Miller wrote:

John said," There's a version where you grow it and the tree becomes a living bench/table/gazebo/whatever,

/
Is this the thread?:

...
...
...

Gavin Munro, a British designer, is growing chairs and other pieces of furniture out of trees. His farm is in Derbyshire, UK.

...

There is also a forum for Living Art:

https://permies.com/f/269/living-art

Yeah! Those first two threads you linked were the main ones I had seen on here before.

I had completely forgotten about that post with the trees shaped like people standing around out in the dark! Haha... that would be so creepy to walk into...

I hadn't seen the other two threads. Thanks.

When I showed those stick thicket huts/pods to my daughters, they just about fell over! Now my oldest daughter has been asking me questions clarifying how you would go about making something like that every 90 seconds or so for the past half hour. (This is after we initially had a pretty good discussion about what it looks like the process is - she just can't get her mind off it and wants to get it perfectly right in her head...) She's on the couch sketching something out right now.



Gavin Munroe was indeed the furniture farmer I was thinking of. I had looked at his process a while back and been pretty intrigued by it. Also thought about some potential ways to improve it (though having never actually done it, who knows of they truly are improvements). And I think the process of coming of with new designs and figuring out how to grow different pieces would be fun as well.


Interesting. Somehow, I guess I had missed the Living Art forum. I'll have to check that out for sure!

I was trying to think of a word for the cross-section between art and permiculture or at least agriculture and the best I've come up with so far is to question: If I end up being a man who grows/farms art pieces, would that make me an articulturist?

Jay Angler wrote: "heard a shot, found a dead buck in the drive, gutted it, gotta get to an island.

Well that's definitely a new one on me...

When I think of being prepared for any situation, this isn't the sort of thing that typically comes to mind, but I guess you're right... you never know.

Jay Angler wrote:Kristine Keeney wrote:

If I happen to suddenly come across a large dead animal that's of decent quality to eat, I know what to do. You never know when an emergency like that might happen!

Neighbor calls, "heard a shot, found a dead buck in the drive, gutted it, gotta get to an island. Will you deal with it - good meat there!" Hubby takes the lawn tractor and trailer and collects it, we use the bucket on our bigger tractor to hoist it, I learn *real fast* how to skin and cut up a deer and get it into a cooler to "hang" except it more or less had to "heap".

So you never know what skills you might need. Neighbor thought I knew how to do this - I process various poultry all the time - but no, I'd never done a deer. I just knew there were scent glands to avoid touching!  And I knew it was quality meat that was worth saving!

That's exactly the sort of situation I would love! I have no freezer space, no cold room, nothing, but I have a bunch of salt, about 20 lbs of sugar, and several butchers who process game nearby.  Well, and a 3 hour drive to my In Laws' where they have all of the above *and* lots of people who could help.

Poultry and rabbits I have a lot of experience with, too. Probably because they're easier to keep than the bigger critters. It's easier to tuck a rabbit or chicken in a single recipe or fridge.  

One thing I learned in those fancy classes I had to take is that whether it's for the lab (dissection, surgery) or the kitchen, certain things look the same and are just really levels of degree. If you can skin a cat, you can skin just about any mammal and, for the most part, anything else. Pigs are different and need a slightly different skill set, but the basics are the same. I have a good set of knives just on the off chance I get a similar call or the neighbor's cows end up in my front yard again.

Deer are really funny looking goats. Treat them the same way and you'll have no problems.

https://mymodernmet.com/gavin-munro-full-grown-tree-furniture/

John Warren wrote:

If I end up being a man who grows/farms art pieces, would that make me an articulturist?

Please consider posting that word here: https://permies.com/t/156743/Words-phrases-permaculture

Thanks Anne! I don't think I had seen pictures quite that clear of his forms before. Or if I have, I'd forgotten.

I'd mostly been just looking at the end product with the knowledge that they grew them upside down and backtracking from there to "see" what they'd done. (Also interesting to see how some of the earlier prototypes look different from the current product, probably largely to add structural strength/rigidity, I assume.)

It's interesting to see the how the chair back is basically espaliered against the form to get it to hold the desired shape. And they did roughly the same with the rest of it as well, but it is most visible with the back.


It would have to feel really strange walking through rows and rows of those. And I would definitely be interested in making my forms out of wood or something if I can do it without it being too crazy expensive... I know he said he doesn't use much plastic for those, but still. Ideally I'd rather not. (Not saying "won't" just ideally...)

---------


Jay, done! Yet another interesting little nook on this site I hadn't discovered yet.

John Warren wrote:

So now that you're talking about crocheting with banana silk... I'm thinking to myself that me and my girls are gonna have to sit down together tomorrow and watch us some YouTube videos about how that stuff is made.

I haven't been online in a few days, but thought I should report back here with a few things.

The first is that I did in fact sit down with my girls and watch multiple YouTube videos about making banana silk.  We found out it doesn't actually come from the leaves but from a fibrous core in the center of the stalk - which a couple of the videos said was technically edible, but one of them said if you didn't slice it pretty thin it was like chewing on cotton since it was so fibrous.  We thought it was somewhat interesting that it might be edible, but we also didn't see anyone comment on the flavor or nutrition content so... maybe for now "edible" is in quotes in my mind.

Definitely got all 3 of us interested in trying it out.  I suspect once we get some banana trees growing here, assuming that actually takes place, we'll pretty much have to give it some kind of attempt.

One thing I'm not certain about:  I'm pretty sure everyone I saw was using a spinning wheel.  Intuitively, I feel like it should be possible to do at least a small scale test without a spinning wheel, but I haven't really spent much time at all thinking it through, any research, or really anything other than intuition to figure out whether that's accurate.

Do you know if it is possible to spin fibers into thread/yarn without a spinning wheel?  (And how difficult is that for someone who's never spun?)


While we were at it, we also watched some videos about the process involved with flax which is significantly more involved, but could still be really fun to give a try.  Would be really cool to have even something small made of linen that we could say we'd grown from seed and done every step involved in getting it to the finished product.  Haven't looked into how much flax you have to grow in your field to get how much yarn on a spool to get how much woven cloth (I assume there's a lot of variables like the tightness of the weave and probably how you spin too, but probably some solid rules of thumb out there too).

As we were wrapping up... I stumbled into a video where someone was spinning and weaving with pineapple fiber (made from the leaves on top of the pineapple, I believe) and rose fiber (made from the stems).

Those may be ones you have in your collection, Kristine, but they were completely new to me.  This is all pretty fascinating stuff.  

Also, as far as the less fiber related ideas go, I'll have to tell my wife you guys are "to blame" for encouraging me haha...

I've spent a significant amount of time over the past few days thinking through things like what "articulture" would look like to me of I were to truly pursue it - probably different things at different scales and depending on what I expected and desired to get out of it, but then kind of trying to narrow in on what sorts of things I might want to try to experiment with in the future.

I started a spreadsheet trying to organize ideas for different projects... and it sort of just started exploding...

A lot of it was based around different things that could be done with the "growing furniture" idea - basically thinking about what else could be grown.  And also looking at some of the cool living structures people have made and thinking about things that could probably be done with weaving together and planting the ends of cut willows branches.  But I ended up coming up with ideas in several other categories as well, and I'm sure as time goes on the list will inevitably grow faster than I could possibly tick items off of it and more categories will get added.

I realize I'm being fairly nonspecific, partly because I think some of it would make for fun surprises when/if I am able to actually start pursuing it and partially because I don't want to get anyone's hopes up that I'm going to be working on something that I can't get around to anytime remotely soon...

But it's been fun thinking this stuff through in more depth over the past few days.

I'm about to disappear for several days after having had limited computer time for about a week. Life just sneaks up on us all.

There are several kinds of spinning that can be done at home. Spinning wheels are large and expensive, but make it possible for one person to process a whole bunch of prepared fiber at a time. They work faster than the other option/s.
Drop spindles, the simplest way to process fiber from the prepared not-quite-raw state, are easily made with a pencil and a potato. I don't recommend trying it that way, but it could be done.

There are top drop spindles, bottom drop spindles, Russian styles, and a whole host of different ways different societies figured out how to make tiny individual fibers become yarn or thread by taking a small amount of them and twirling/twisting them together. If you've ever taken a handful of some kind of fiber (animal hair is most common) and rolled it against your thigh until it made a "snake", that was you doing a very simple form of preperatory work before you would spin it with a weighted stick.
There are YouTube videos aplenty and lots of books on drop spindles, spindling, and how to start processing fibers.
Article on How To Spin with a Drop Spindle
Different article on making and using a drop spindle

Generally speaking, animal fibers are easier to learn with. Everyone is different, but sheep's wool is made to stick to itself and can be reasonably cheap (as long as you don't get into the specialty stuff) and sheep tend to have a surprising amount of it. Plant fibers, I've been told, are more "slippery", though that was one person's viewpoint. I live in cotton country, and there's always wads piled up by the road after harvest, but I haven't tried processing it because I'm lazy.
There are people in Permies who do and have grown and processed flax, quite possibly other plant fibers as well. I would direct you to those threads for in depth discussions and/or information.

I have heard of pineapple fiber. I think I have some, somewhere. I wasn't impressed with it, but thought it would be a substitute for jute - coarse and large fibers - but very absorbent, if I remember right. I had fun burning a bit of all my samples, as part of the information I presented, not because it's fun to set tiny bits of things on fire.

Yucca, Giant Ragweed, palm fonds and bark, and saw palmetto have all been used as fibers to make things with. In fact, if there's a plant or animal fiber out there, I'm pretty sure someone at some time has made stuff out of it - no matter how weird you might think it. After all, human hair has been used for jewelry for at least a few hundred years (the Victorians got weird about it), and a Russian woman made herself a hand knitted outfit out of her own hair. It's an interesting world!

Felting is easier to do than spinning, you can do it with animal fibers (plant fibers don't felt because of structural differences in the fiber), and all you really need is the animal fiber, soap, water, and an acid. People use felt to make everything from types of clothing to household stuff and it's fun. You might have done it accidentally if you've ever washed a wool sweater in hot water in a machine. It's *that* easy.

Best thoughts to  you and your family of creative adventurers!