Fiber Fun Recap

While my posting has been lamentably slow of late, my adventures with all things stringy have been more frequent and fast paced.

Last month was Great Western War which, this year, held an early period sheep to shawl project. The project was cooperative with all who wished helping to hand spin with drop spindle, set up the warp weighted loom and weave on it. Arriving half way through the project, I was in time to help spin weft and to help weave though I saw something of the end of the set up phase. I spun that weekend till my hands literally ached! I must have at least tripled my total amount of spinning I've done in my life. I also got some practice at spinning while walking and though it slowed me somewhat I was doing so with tolerable ease after a while. I made less successful attempts to use a distaff.

It was fantastic to see the warp weighted loom in action and to try my hand at it. It makes a lot more sense now. For years my only weaving experience was tablet weaving and without seeing other--more common!--forms of weaving in action, it was hard to understand how it actually worked. Between inkle weaving and the warp weighted loom it makes a great deal more sense now.

I also took a class on spinning linen on the drop spindle. I had the vague idea that this was a good deal more advanced than spinning wool, and the teacher was indeed relieved to see her only two students busy at work spinning wool when she showed up (working on weft for the weaving of course!). But it wasn't actually all that hard, just a little alien. Animal fibers, like wool, want to bind together. They have little hooks along their length that grip each other. Wool, being rather kinked as well, does this very easily, but other animal hair can also be used. Plant fibers do not have this property. However, when bast fibers like flax (linen) get wet, they become a bit gummy. This stickiness when wet is what is used to bind the fibers together and once bound (aided by the twist you spin in) they dry stuck together. Voila! Linen thread! The linen fibers are hugely long--perhaps a yard--one one only needs two or so even at the outset, making it quite easy to achieve thread-thin, sturdy handspun without it breaking every couple of minutes. My consistent wool spinning still needs to stay more than twice that thick to keep from breaking all the time.

I definitely recommend learning to spin linen from someone who does it. I'm sure the hands-on approach is infinitely easier than learning from description in this case. But in case you lack access to such a person, here's a quick and dirty summary.

You'll need your fibers, whether long or short (the tow, the shorter whiter softer fibers can also be spun) to be prepared and laying together in one direction. Apply them to a distaff such that you can pull fibers off the bottom. It will be easiest if the distaff can be fixed upright or held by someone else if you aren't accustomed to using a distaff.

Have a bowl of water handy. One hand will be controlling the supply of fibers and preventing the twist from traveling up to the bulk of the fibers. You won't want this hand to get too wet because you don't want your fibers getting wet and gummy till they're at the point of being spun to thread. Once you have your two or three fibers pulled out dampen the length, and attach them to the leader thread (some commercially purchased linen thread might be ideal, but you could simply tie the end to some wool or cotton string. Resting the spindle on a surface give it some spin (you will want one with a point at the bottom rather than a hook) then let the spin travel up to the damp fibers.

Once you are able to wind some of the linen thread onto the spindle, the thread should be strong enough to bear the weight of the spindle and be used normally. Make sure to leave plenty of time to overlap new fibers. You should join new fibers about a foot before the end of fibers in use and never have fewer than two fibers--this requires a little more advanced planning than usual.

When you wind on your thread, move up and down the spindle rather than spinning on at the same spot. Because the gumminess is what is binding the fibers together, you can get the whole clump binding together if you don't spread it out, criss-crossing fibers rather than piling them on in parallel.

Looking back up at that, I don't place any reliance on it being useful enough to try. But if you'd like clarification, don't hesitate to contact me. And if you're in norther California, I can even demonstrate at some SCA event if you'd like! Though I should really practice to keep my hand in, and I will soon be out of flax to spin and have not yet acquired a source for it.

Also at GWW was a "wool to whatever" contest wherein the contestants were invited to take undyed wool roving and produce anything they could think of. Contestants were encouraged to be not only creative, but to try out new things. I was tempted to try some felting, a technique I'd learned a few months ago at West-An Tir War, but I lacked supplies. I probably could have scavenged, for the most important elements beyond wool are soap (I think we even had some in camp, and if we hadn't, someone else would have) and something hard and water proof to serve as mould. But where I would go from there, I didn't know. And I was spending most of my time on the warp weighted loom project and its spinning.

But late at night, after I'd turned my last batch of weft spinning in, inspiration finally struck. I spun yet more, made my first ever attempt at plying, and then used couched embroidery (with a little straight stitch thrown in) to embroider a Pictish goose with mirror and comb onto a piece of felt I had with me (sadly modern fake felt rather than wool felt, but what can you do?). I worked feverishly by torchlight while the nearby group got increasingly drunk. They were very friendly though, and made sure I had enough light throughout! I was up stitching till the wee hours of the morning and then had to get up bright and early to submit my entry. But I was glad I attended great court because I actually came in 3rd! I felt a bit outclassed--one of the other winners had felted a viking hat, complete with decoration. But the sponsor of the contest told me later that they were very glad to see people try new things, and it was in fact my first plying and second ever couched project (or first; I certainly understood the premise and I think I may have used the technique on Elf's drum case years ago.)

Well, after writing all that about just my fiber exploits at GWW, I feel the need to wrap this up. Perhaps I will come back to the rest of my recap, but the brief version is I have also:

- Twined a water bottle holder out of jute around a glass bottle
- Begun picked pattern inkle weaving which is not coming out as I envisioned, but is a good first try I think
- Learned to knit in the round and knitted most of a hand bag which I don't know how to finish!
- Picked out out gorgeous string with my mother who recently visited