The cross vine I planted near the coop runs is happy! It has vines climbing up on two sides of the run, and has bloomed (small orange spots in the photo). The hope is that it fills in the corner to provide shade for the chicken run and since it is in full sun (one of the few places on our property that has full sun), we hope when it is established the bloom profusion will be spectacular. There are other cross vines in the area that have an amazing display of blooms multiple times per year.
I dropped my spindle and it broke again, in the middle of a walk. Luckily it cracked and didn’t completely snap off, so I was able to wrap the yarn around the neck and finish spinning the roving I had in my bag. After I came home and removed the ball of spun yarn, I put some wood glue in the crack and clamped it up tight.
This ball of yarn is another go with adding bits of color to alpaca fleece. When I was carding the fibers for the rolags, I found something suspicious. In the bag of “100% silk” sari thread waste were strands of metallic gold. Hm. Probably not silk. So I did a burn test on four different colors. I was surprised that two of the colors (pink and neon green) were actually silk despite the vast difference in texture. When I burned them I got the characteristic balls of ash that crushed easily. (My sense of smell is terrible, so I need to rely on other physical signs.) The metallic gold, not shockingly, just melted in the candle flame. Then I tested some black fibers that burned even when removed from the flame (silk does not) and produced fine gray ash with no ball. This may be rayon (here is a good article on the burn test). If you do a burn test yourself, use tweezers to hold the twisted fibers to the flame. The black fibers flared and burned faster than I could say “ouch”. (I did use tweezers, but the ferocity of the burn was surprising.) So I will have to say the yarn I am making uses mixed fiber waste.
I love my concrete countertops.
I tried adding some more colored sari silk waste to my cream alpaca fleece and went too far. Instead of touches of brilliant color I have a muddled pastel mess. Hm.
I did learn that trimming the silk threads down to about the same length as the alpaca fiber helps with carding, but gives more loose ends when spinning. Time to try again, maybe with trimmed silk, but less volume.
I’ve started a new spinning project. I read about using waste sari silk threads in spinning and had to order some.
To get the color to pop, I chose the lightest color fleece I have, which is a light cream from an alpaca named Sugar Plum. I carded a small amount of the sari silk with the alpaca before rolling up the rolag.
I’m spinning this up on my favorite drop spindle as I walk the neighborhood. The bits of color are nice, but I think I need a bit more.
Oh how joyous it was to get back to walking and spinning!
They have returned! After being eaten down to nothing but stems, the passion flower vines have started to grow leaves again, hurray! This time, I am going to give the plants some time to grow and fill out before I let them be butterfly host plants. I picked off the caterpillar I found, then sprayed the leaves with my diluted neem oil mixture (neem, peppermint, Castile soap). Once the plants are well established, then I’ll let up on the neem treatment so the caterpillars have delectable bits to gnaw.
