Friday, November 7, 2008

The good, the bad and the ugly

Last night my spinning mojo was definitely off. Our class was on plant fibres, and we tried corn silk, cotton and flax. Things started off OK with the corn silk (which is not the silk from corn ears, but rather a man-made fibre using compounds drawn from the corn stalk). Corn silk has the lustre of silk, but it's not quite so slippery.



Everybody else in the class was groaning about the corn silk being a pain, but I was spinning along nicely and finished the whole whack. Perhaps I got cocky - or was hypnotized by a corn silk haze - and that's why I struggled so much with the next two fibres.



Cotton is notoriously difficult to spin because its fibres are ridiculously short, and that was sure my experience. I soon gave up out of frustration after only managing a few short samples, and terrible ones at that. I'll need to try it again on my own to allow myself free reign with the cursing. Next we did the flax. It was OK to spin, but I can't imagine why anyone would want to make their own flax yarn. It's so coarse and scratchy, about all I think it would be good for is bundling cardboard for recycling.

1 comment:

  1. oh! I had no idea you spun! how exciting! I always loved spinning corn silk, and I found bamboo was great too (soysilk was okay, but it doesn't have the stability the others seem to have). I actually kinda like spinning flax- did you spin it dry or wet? You can make a goop out of flax seeds that helps smooth the fibres down as you spin, making a much nicer finished yarn. Wool is still nicest though (especially merino!).

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