Michigan Fiber Festival: Part 2

My first two classes were soapmaking classes.  There are two ways to make soap, the cold method and the hot method.  The cold method uses natural oils and fats like olive oil, palm oil and coconut oil and mixes them with lye.  Most people with kids and/or pets choose the hot method because it doesn't use lye.  Lye is extremely dangerous.  This is the soap from my first class:

 

I know it doesn't look like much but in about a month, after it cures, it's going to be awesome lemongrass scented soap.

My second class was spinning and dyeing silk.  We dyed silk hankies and silk bells/caps.  We boiled silk cocoons in washing soda and water to soften them and to release the silk.  Did you know you could spin right from a washed and dried cocoon?  I never thought about it before but I guess it makes perfect sense.  These are the hankies and bells I dyed in class:

 

We learned in class that in Japan, silk hankies are used as fiberfill, or batting, for kimonos.  Apparently, some Japanese think we're nuts that we spin the hankies.  In case you're wondering, the hankies are on the left and the bells are on the right.

My third class was spinning angora.  We learned about four breeds of angora rabbit:  French, German, English and Satin.  There's another breed called the Giant but we didn't spin any of that fiber.  Here's a shot of our instructor spinning right from the rabbit:

 

It doesn't look like much fun for the rabbit but apparently they don't mind too much.

The next best thing to classes is shopping:

 

I didn't really buy too much.  I bought some roving:

 

The stuff on the left is 80/20 Merino/silk and the stuff on the right is 50/50 Merino/silk.  I guess this is the year of spinning silk.

I want to play a little bit with natural dyes and so I bought some cochineal and alum and cream of tarter to act as mordants.  I should be able to get a beautiful raspberry pink using alum and cream of tarter:

 

A new foray into natural dyeing requires a book on the subject, and while I'm at it, a history of cochineal:

 

Lastly, the skein contest netted me a first and a second place:

 

I'm sad it's over and I'm already eager for next year.

Comments

[gayle]

I can't believe she was spinning right off the bunny! Never even heard of *that* before.
Looks like you were pretty restrained in your purchasing, especially after taking such interesting classes...

[val]

Congrats Bec on the first and second place winnings! .. I'll be interested to see how you natural dyeing comes out.