Retting Yucca Leaves

    Over the past two months I have discovered that it's entirely possible to ret yucca leaves in a tank of water like flax. The process takes considerably longer than it would take with flax, but it does in fact work. For this process, I submerged the bundles of yucca leaves in a wheelbarrow filled with water and changed the water daily over a period of three months. Every week, I would test the yucca leaves to see if the outer skin of the leaves would peel off with my bare fingers and then I would gradually remove the leaves that had completely peeled away the outer skin. After about a month and a half to two months into the process, the retting started to slow down and I had to scrape off the remaining skin from the leaves with a mussel shell and a very smooth cutting board. After scraping off the skin from the remaining leaves, I then pounded the leaves with the flat side of a kitchen mallet against the smooth cutting board to separate the fibers. Once these remaining leaves were pounded, I let them dry for a day and a half and bundled them with the other leaves.

   In order to separate the fibers even further, I bought a set of flax hackles from Wingham Woolworks and passed the processed and dried leaves through the hackles to open up the fibers and separate the tow from the line fibers in the leaves. I got a surprisingly high yield of line fiber using this method and most of the fiber was usable for distaff spinning, including the longer tow fibers resulting from as second and third hackling of the leftover tow fiber. The resulting fibers have a coarse texture that's somewhere between hoarse hair and medium grade wool. I'm hoping I can soften any cloth I weave from the fibers by washing it in hot water with borax and washing soda so I can use the yucca fiber to weave outer clothing.

    Because I processed almost an entire fully mature plant, I got a yield of 8.5 ounces of fiber. One of my neighbors was remodeling a house. This remodeling included completely redoing the landscaping so he let me harvest the entire yucca plant.

    Given how long this retting process took, I'm debating on whether or not to use it the next time I prepare yucca fiber for spinning. It's very efficient at separating the leaf pulp and skin from the leaf fibers, but it generates foul smelling gas and tends to attract mosquitos even when the water is changed daily.

I also forgot to mention that I got the idea of retting yucca leaves in a tank of water from YouTuber Pete McWade on his YouTube channel called A Bit Twisted. He also tried tank retting yucca fibers but used a much shorter retting period for the leaves. Here's one video of him spinning yucca fibers from a distaff that he retted.

That's impressive - can you give an indication of the softness of the fibre - suitable for clothing,  placemats or pot scrubbers, garden ties?
The video suggests that the yucca fibre wants to be spun counter-clockwise which is how most fibres were spun before the advent of technology.  Ropes still made this way, and some crafts need a counterclockwise spin so the stitches stay tight, eg looped string bags.

Jill Dyer wrote:That's impressive - can you give an indication of the softness of the fibre - suitable for clothing,  placemats or pot scrubbers, garden ties?

At the moment, the texture of the yucca fiber is quite coarse. It's somewhere in texture between horse hair and medium grade wool. I plan on using some kind of alkaline treatment on the fibers to soften them. I'm corresponding with someone from my local weavers guild for advice on how to soften plant fibers. The lady I'm corresponding with already has experience working with flax and hemp fiber so she might be able to give some helpful advice.

I have a native Arkansas yucca so I cut a few leaves to process for fiber. Same technique as in this thread on plantain fiber except I scarified the leaf surface with a serrated knife to make the tissues more accessible to microbes. The fibers are so long and durable. I am ready to make more. This plant is very common along the roads on woodland edges.

You might try the finishing technique used for cotton - strips pectin and other stickies from the fibres.  Recipe from Stephanie Gaustad, "Spinning Cotton"  An excellent source of info.  Mine is a DVD.
2 tablespoons washing soda (soda ash)  1 tablespoon laundry detergent (no enzymes or optical whiteners)  generous amount of water, heat to simmer and add the yarn simmer 40 minutes. Rinse till yarn stops feeling slimy.
For a trial, just work with 2:1 ratio for the soda and detergent - a pinch, teaspoon, or fraction thereof.  It's well worth a try.

I will check out the washing soda method since I currently have ready access to baking soda that I can turn into washing soda. Chances are that this method should be cheaper and safer for me than using wood ash lye.

I was about to suggest that wood ash lye might be a good alternative as they should be about the same pH.  Soda ash easier to measure out with certainty, wood ash a bit more hit-and-miss.  I use my garden pH meter to test.  Hope it goes well, there's always that chance with any experiment that the result will not be as expected.  If it works, then cake all round. 🍰 I will keep my fingers crossed.

Hi Ryan Great post. I've managed to figure out how to turn yucca fibers into soft fibers for yarn production. I learned this from an old online 1960s study on the Wetherill Mesa and fibers they found on the site. I talked about it in this thread months ago with pictures of the fibers.

This works best with younger leaves for softer fibers but can be done with older leaves but might require a bit more work. The fibers can get very soft. Sun drying bleaching the fibers also makes them turn out very beautifully white. https://permies.com/t/58819/works-making-yarn-plants

You might try the traditional method of boiling and then squishing described by Native SW American archaeologist Mary Weahkee in the portion of her video on the yucca cordage in this YT video about making traditional turkey feather blankets
https://youtu.be/6L4qRn3RIDc

I'm inspired