milkweed! flowers, fiber, twine

[asakiyume]

This year I'm mainly growing milkweed. Milkweed for flowers, milkweed with the garlic and other vegetables:





In part that's for pollinators and monarch butterflies, but it's also in large part for the super strong, super beautiful **fibers* that milkweed produces. I realized I can put that chambira fiber knowledge to work here with my own, local fibers. I used to have a goal of trying to spin the fibers... in spite of the fact that I've never spun anything. But in the Amazon, they're not spinning the chambira fibers, they're making twine--well I can do that! There are a thousand videos on Youtube of people turning milkweed fibers into twine.

Here are the dried stalks from last year.



And here's some of the fiber:



You separate the fibers from the inner pith, and you end up with long ribbons. They're not pure white like those fibers in the last picture, I think because of the mildew and weathering from being outside. I'm going to experiment with processing fresher stems. The ribbons remind me so much of the chambira palm fibers!



And here it is as twine! I have several little bits of twine now. Next two projects: (1) dyeing it with the madder I've got growing in the yard and (2) making bracelets!

Comments

[or_midnight]

oh, wow, that twine looks so cool! I've grown flax a few times, and it's super labor intensive to turn it into proper spinning fiber, but I bet it would work perfectly for something like this, and with a fraction of the processing. (also, hi! I found your journal in some kind of friend-of-a-friend way clicking around on DW, and I've been reading for a while but this might be the first time I've commented.)

[asakiyume]

That's interesting to know about actual flax--have you actually gotten to the point of being able to spin it? I was watching videos from Old Sturbridge Village on the processing of it, and yeah--it does seem intensive!

The problem with twine is that you can't make cloth with it, of course.....or can you... I wonder if one could knit with it and make clothing that way. Or crochet with it...

--Also hi, welcome! I'll mutualize our situation :-)

[or_midnight]

phew, extremely delayed reply, but I sort of got flax to the point where I could spin it. I didn't grow a kind that was ideal for long fibers, and I also didn't process it the correct/traditional way. I did the whole soaking process to separate the fibers from the stem, then sort of went stem by stem, peeling off the fiber with my fingers, and from there I combed it in tiny little batches. So I wound up with, like, a handful of really beautiful golden fibers that I think, in theory, could have been spun, but by that point I was just like, "I have proved that this could work if I had a million hours to spend on it, experiment complete!!"

But I could definitely skip the combing process and do a coarse version of the stem vs. fiber separation and just work with the pieces like you've done with the milkweed to get some very useful twine!!

I think the only reason you couldn't knit or crochet with what you have here would be texture: it might be coarse for a garment that had a lot of skin contact, but it could be awesome for something like a sun hat or sandals/slippers. Anyway, thanks for chatting about fiberarts stuff, I'm mentally putting milkweed on my to-grow list for next year!

[asakiyume]

Good point about the texture! Maybe I won't try knitting it :D ... But a bag made of it would be fun!