Inventory (part 1)

Getting a handle on what I've spun.

I am like most fiber people, whether sewers, knitters, crocheters, weavers, spinners, felters, tatters, or whatever avenue(s) a collector of fiber and yarn and all the toys that go with it. I first heard about men “the one who dies with the most toys, wins.” The correlary appears to be the one with the most fiber/yarn/yardage wins.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of spinning lately (and collecting even more fiber to spin) and I decided to make this into a newsletter post, because: 1) it’s pretty; 2) someone might decide they want to take some of it off my hands, and this is a way to get it out in the world.

Silks

Silk comes in a number of ways: caps, bricks, hankies and cocoons among other forms. Below is some yarn from a silk hankie. To quote a site selling silk:

Hankies are produced manually after the cocoons have been degummed, these are made by stretching silk cocoons across a wooden board.

it is undyed and in natural creamy white. The fibers are stretched by hand over forming a 6" x 6”square.

And here’s some dyed hankie silk of mine:

Muga silk is a kind of wild silk from the Indian state of Assam. It is naturally golden colored. I’ve used most of what I have spun up, but I have another pound available.

I am not much of a dyer, but I love well dyed yarns. There is a woman who has a business called “Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks” and her work is beautiful. Here are three unspun hanks. Colors from L to R are “Passionate Purple, Polar Purple, and Heather.

And here is the one that I have managed to spin so far. It’s colorway is called “Port.” and I plyed it with silk thread.

The last bit of pure silk spun up so far is some sari silk - recycled fibers from old saris.

This too is mostly plyed with silk thread, except for the little skein on the right which is chain plyed (3 ply).

Merino/Silk

On to some merino silk blends. The first is from a company names Ashland Bay and in a colorway called McKenzie. Most was self plyed, but the last little bit got plyed with silk thread.

Blends can come in many forms. This is a merino/silk yarn from a company called Flannel Cakes called Jockey Ridge plyed with tussah silk.

The last merino/silk comes from plying silk and merino yarns from the same colorway. In this case the fiber came all the way from New Zealand and the colorway is Birds of Paradise.

Exotics

As you may have discerned, I do love luxury fibers. Here’s a few other combos. First up silk and baby camel.

Then yak and silk

Another amazing fiber dying company is called Greenwood Fiber works. I like this one colorway, Calypso so much I bought it on three different occasions. Two are yak/silk (bottom) and the other is merino/silk/Cashmere (top).

This first skein was plyed by spinning two bobbins and then plying them. The colors are not perfectly aligned.

The second was chain plyed for a 3 ply that is mostly color aligned

And lastly is some silk/camel/yak. I can’t find any raw fiber in my stash at this time, so you just get the yarn.

I just wish you all could pet these fibers and yarn. Pictures only tell a part of the story.

So, this is how I’m probably going to proceed - pictures of fiber, and spinning and weavings. Maybe some thoughts about working at a tribal clinic, or talk about end-of-life care in between, but no promises regarding what or when.