Soy "Silk"

I'm working my way through the plant-derived fibres that make up the last unit of my spinning course. After my dislike for the bamboo fibre, the soy was a pleasant surprise. I don't love it, but the fibres are longer and not so smooth. That makes the physical challenge of spinning easier. The material is not as evenly processed either. After the uniform white of the bamboo, a bit of twiggy imperfection was quite welcome every now and then. And I occasionaly spotted a bit of waviness in the fibre--not the elastic crimp of wool, but some sort of crimp nonetheless. The colour is this light honey tone: Having said all that in its favour, it's not silk. Call me biased, but look at this pic, you can see some lustre, but not enough for a real Wow.

As for environmental credentials: apparently this stuff is a made from a byproduct of tofu. That should please my vegetarian friends. I couldn't get any meaningful information about the actual processing, so I can't do a side by side comparison between cotton, bamboo and soy for "green value".

The next thing to think about is dyeing. I'm going to have to experiment. I'd lumped this fibre in with the "semi-synthetic cellulose" group, but apparently it takes acid dyes well. And if it's a tofu byproduct, then mabe there's more protein in there than I thought. I don't know enough about it at this stage.

I'm still strongly focussed on getting my spinning requirments ticked off, so just now it's most valuable feature is that it is done. Now for a soy-wool blend--maybe today--and two tencel skeins. The countdown continues!

Warmth

I'm getting to the bottom of the list of silk yarns for my Spinning Folio. Thankfully this end of the list deals with various forms of "silk waste": lumpy, bumpy interesting stuff. Yesterday's skein was coloured even! Raspberry merino tops blended with sari silk waste--"throwster's waste"--on my hand carders. I selected pink and orange tones and got this warm mix. Just as well since yesterday was also the first day this year that I've kept my heater on all day. I appreciated having some warmth in my hands.

I went on to blend some white silk waste with mohair and wool. Two bobbins are spun and ready to be plied. After that all I need to do is work through a list of cellulose fibres and put everything in order ready to hand in. But today it's beading. I'm off to the Neighbourhood House soon for my first session of Jewellery Making.

End in Sight

Here's the checklist I'm working from to finish my Spinning Certificate Folio requirements. I got myself a bit more organised over the weekend and checked off the skeins I've already completed. There are a few more silk blends to do on this page. I'll happily tackle those this week. I love working with silk and I've already done the fine smooth ones last year. Now I'm looking forward to some interest textures and colours with the various forms of silk waste. The next couple of units were felting and dyeing--I got those all done at the time. Then there's a section on various cellulose fibres: bamboo, tencel, soy etc. And that's it!

Breakfast View

My body clock is all out of wack, and it was well and truly dark when I had breakfast this morning. I did have this lovely rose to cheer my view: It's a Mr Lincoln rose from my front garden, and it has a delightful scent.

My breakfast was much more prosaic: rolled oats, oat bran and sultanas with skim milk--not quite fitting for the rose elegance, but much more in keeping with the rest of my table. The roses are my reward for a good hour spent weeding late yesterday afternoon. I also have roses on my design wall--I've pulled out an unfinished quilt from several years ago and it's on display to boost my inspiration and help me to decide how to finish it.

Meanwhile, I have some lovely fine kid mohair to prepare for spinning--I'm flicking it, and so far my fingers are OK. It's too fine and long to comb effectively. I tried carding it, but even on my new fine carders I was losing too much of it's character. I'll have plenty left to card later, since flicking removes a lot of lovely, useful, not quite as long fibre in preparation. I bought 100g and I need a 20g sample--plus a swatch, display skein, fibre sample etc etc--yep I'm back to working on my Spinning Certificate Folio. That will leave plenty to play with when the required work is done.

Fairy Floss

Not pink, but it's light and airy and it flowed onto my bobbin oh so smoothly:It's mohair and wool, carded on my hand carders and now spun up. The spinning was as sweet as its namesake, except for the last two rolags, which somehow didn't behave the way I wanted them to, but overall it was a happy spinning experience. And that's one more of my Folio skeins spun.

Ummm . . . Pink Again

I'm planning a "bubble and squeak" wrap for the end of my Spinning Folio. "Bubble and Squeak" are the fritters traditionally made with leftovers from a roast dinner--usually the day after. So my "Bubble and Squeak" wrap will be all the bits of handspun that didn't make it into the folio for whatever reason:

• excess to requirements
• trial runs
• skeins where I forgot to keep a sample to display
• insufficient fibre to make up the required quantity
• unidentified spinning . . .

To unify the whole thing--and because I don't like to wear neutral colours--I've been dyeing the skeins in shades of purple and pink. Here's today's brew:

This one is the excess of my medium woollen sample. The dye is Landscape, Galah. As you can see, my dye pot is nothing very flash and it shares the stove with the coffee pot. Most of the brown on the stove top is over-enthusiastic coffee. Once the stove cools down, I'll give it a clean up, but for now, I'm going to turn that dye pot down to simmer and get back to my spinning.

The Bigger Picture

Here's the sample I grafted yesterday, blocked and almost ready to go into my folio--I do need to weave in those loose ends--along with some seascape inspiration pics that I got off the internet to explain my thinking. As you can see, once it's done and blocked, the grafted seam isn't so much of a big deal . . . and I am getting better at it. Remind me of that, will you please!