milkweed fibers

[asakiyume]

I keep trying to extract the fibers from milkweed. They can apparently be spun, much like flax, and are very strong and beautiful. I've seen some videos on how to process flax, and I'm trying to do similar with milkweed, but there are so many variables, and I have very crude, and somewhat inappropriate tools, so.

Here are last year's milkweed stalks, which I left outside all winter so they'd rot somewhat. This seemed easier (and less smelly) than retting (where you soak the stalks intensively in water to help separate the fibers), but I'm not sure they decayed quite enough.



(Here are all the milkweed-pod coracles, which I am going to paint and launch as a grand flotilla. Maybe.)



And here are the stalks after just a little pounding. You can see some silvery white fibers in the lower right corner, just beginning to show.



And here's the whole pile of milkweed stalks, after a great deal of pounding, but still not pounded enough for the next stage, probably. You can see more of the silvery fibers here and there, but still a heck of a lot of woody stalky stuff. I probably need to keep on pounding for a while more. After Readercon!

Comments

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Milkweed threads! For clothes to go a-questing in?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Absolutely! It doesn't get more faery than milkweed garments. Unless it's this guy dressed in Burdock leaves…


Source: http://fergustheforager.co.uk/2012/06/burdock/

I will have to do an entry about him sometime soon.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

That burdock shirt is *amazing*. How did he stick them together like that?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I don't know! And how did he get them not to dry up and crumble? I've got his page bookmarked, because he also has some folklore and a picture of a whole suit of burrs there. I read it all glancingly fast, enough to know I wanted to come back, but not slow enough to retain anything.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

I love that you're doing this!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I'm having fun, though I wish I really could be assured of having usable fibers at the end.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

that looks like an immense amount of work!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The videos I've been looking at show all sorts of helpful tools that the Germans, English, and French used to process flax. I think it's still a lot of work, but much better than going at it with a rock or the edge of a mattock, which were/are my tools. Still, I guess I'd characterize my own activity as energetic play rather than work, since nothing depends on it (thank goodness).

[duccio.livejournal.com]

You're going to spin this? You have a spinning wheel... I'm impressed.

Maybe you could make something like papyrus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus) with it too. I'd like to be there to try that with you. Milkweed papyrus: awsome!
.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I don't have a spinning wheel or even a spindle. My thought was that if I ever do get some usable fibers, I'd send half to a friend who does spin, and keep half to experiment with--experiment with learning hand spinning (you don't need a wheel--in fact, my friend who spins uses mainly just spindles and hand spinning).

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

Cool! Of COURSE you would think to do something like this!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

And I had so much fun with **all the silky milkweed seeds** too.

[shellynoir.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking a trampoline, a laundry bag, a bored person is what you need.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I was doing a version of that--minus the trampoline--to start out with!

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

It makes you realise just how amazing cotton must have seemed when it was first discovered. I remember reading somewhere (NewScientist?) about a mythical place where sheep grew tethered to ground like plants and the theory that this may have been a garbled version of a wonderful plant that could make wool...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely. And yet part of what I'm also thinking of (in a vague, unfocused way) is how awful cotton production is for the land, requiring huge amounts of irrigation, draining the ground of nutrients, etc. … I don't know if milkweed could ever become commercial, but it has the huge advantage of being perennial and hardy. Not that it would ever replace cotton, but if a whole bunch of other types of fibers were considered for use, then maybe that diversity would make for better land use, etc. (I don't really know at all: it could be that even with proper tools and mechanization, processing milkweed wouldn't be cost effective--and really I'm doing this just for fun, but these thoughts do swirl around in the back of my head…. along with the thought of shining milkweed shirts!)

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

We never grew cotton so I didn't know much about it, and never realized how bad it was until reading TGoW.

I love these types of swirling thoughts you get. :D

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

TGoW strengthened my impression, for sure! But I first got it from hearing about things like the Aral Sea, diverted for irrigating cotton fields, and I guess also from hearing about cotton cultivation in other places.

I'm glad ^_^ It's fun to be able to share them.

[littlemoremasks.livejournal.com]

I feel like there's a song in this somewhere, some kind of warning ballad.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

In what aspect? The amount of work it takes, or…?

[littlemoremasks.livejournal.com]

Honestly when I read the entry I was reminded of some of the non Simon & Garfunkle version of _Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme_. The ones that are about braiding shirts out of really unpleasant stuff. It seems like this could have the makings of some costly swamp magic to me.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh yes: I can see that, definitely.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

Huh. I've heard about attempts to use milkweed slk as a substitute for kapok, as lifejacket stuffing, but never of using fiber from milkweeds talks like linen.

I was deeply impressed at a young age by a Children's Digest legend of a Chinese emperor wose irritation with Linum led him to take the right steps to process its fibers.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I don't know where I heard of it. First Peoples used lots of fibers from perennial plants like nettles--I might have found out about it doing that research. Or it could have been just through researching milkweed itself, which is such a wonderful plant in so many ways.

[dudeshoes.livejournal.com]

Write messages in the bottom of your coracles?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Mais bien sûr!

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Yes, definitely!

[core-opsis.livejournal.com]

What an interesting process! I actually really like the pictures--just as they are--for their great colors and textures. The pods, I could see spray-painting with some kind of sparkly paint, and making Christmas tree ornaments out of--or maybe just as they are--or maybe with a deep red watercolor on the inside.....though I idea of little boats is marvelous.

Keep us posted!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Will do!

[docdad2.livejournal.com]

The project appears daunting. I hope you will post progress notes.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I do feel like I could do with a mentor or fellow experimenter--I'm pretty much at sea! But it's fun :-)

I'll post notes--I haven't been back to it yet….

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of the story of the sister who had to spin and weave and make shirts for her twelve brothers, from thistles, to free them from the curse which had turned them into swans. :)
When I first read that story,when I was little, I thought the thistles were just put in to make it a more cruel ordeal for the sister, but it seems that thistles can be spun, just as you are doing. (Scotch thistles, I presume, since it's a Scottish fairytale.)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

And I've heard that story, only with stinging nettles, and same: it turns out stinging nettles do indeed have spinnable fibers. I'd always imagined her making the shirts out of the raw nettles, leaves and all.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

And now I'm abashed - I think it was stinging nettles in the version I knew, too. I guess I extrapolated from the Scottishness to the thistles.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Thistles would be equally painful to spin! I came across a magnificent thistle growing behind a back door the other day, and wow. The spines on it!