Well now that we know how milk fiber is process and what it is made up of, I was extremely curious on how it dyes and spins. I used Cushings direct dye in plum and it turned out awesome. Did not run or exhaust the dye bath. I also tried Cushings acid dye in peacock. Also […]
Fiber Animals
I tried out some milk protein fiber recently. I had to wonder after my experience with corn fiber how much of it was actually still milk and how much manufacturing it went thru. Here is a bit of history:” Milk fiber was invented in 1930’s in Italy and America to compete wool. The fiber known […]
I’ve been slowly collecting cashmere off the goats. Just in time too as I’m down to 1 pd of stock cashmere left. The goats are all looking alot skinnier except for Gabby. Her fiber just isn’t ready to release yet. The chickens have majorly started laying again. We collected 8 eggs in one day and […]
The first thing I always tell people about silk is that it is wormspit(usually while they are petting it). I just can’t help myself. There are more than 500 species of wild silkworms in the world although only a few are used to produce cloth. The first worm I will be talking about is the […]
Alpaca dyes pretty well. Here are some examples of wool, white suri and white huacaya washed and then dyed. I used the same dyepot for all 3 fibers. Top Left suffolk wool washed, top right huacaya fiber washed, left bottom suri fiber washed. Top Row:1st picture is from left to right wool, huacaya, and […]
Alpaca fiber comes in 2 varieties suri and huacaya. Huacaya reminds me of a lanolin-free, super-soft sheep fleece. Suri reminds me of supersoft mohair or just washed soft silky hair. Washed Suri Fiber Alpaca is very soft and silky it has no lanolin but can be very dusty as alpacas like to take dust baths. […]
Mohair really does take dye very well. Here are a few examples of wool dyed and mohair dyed in the same dye bath. Mohair in the left , Wool on the right. I’ve also found it blends really well with other fibers. Spinning 100% mohair is fun depending preparation can have different results. Mohair top […]
Mohair is fabric or yarn made from the hair or wool(sometimes as it’s called) of the Angora goat. Mohair has scales like wool but they are not fully developed so they don’t felt exactly like wool does. I’ve notice that the stitches in the wool mohair blend are still perceptible. The stitches in the 100% wool blend have disappeared. There can be a […]
Cashmere dyes beautfully. It is a matt coloring as there seems little shine on cashmere. It’s so incredibley soft that I don’t think it matters. Here is what it did when I carded it. I admit I’m pretty new at carding cashmere. I’m doing more research to see if I can card it with other […]
I’ve posted about fiber goat care. So you have fiber how do you process it and what do you do with it? Cashmere goats produce a double fleece that consists of a fine, soft undercoat and much coarser outer coating of hair called guard hair. For the fine under-down to be processed further, it must be de-haired. […]
