Having My Wisdom Removed

Lots of things to blog about but right now all my mojo has been going into healing up the holes in my head. Almost human again but not quite.

Willow Ware Birds

Our Mushroom Farm

About as local as it gets. To grow your own mushrooms check out Far West Fungi.

Happy 4th Of July!

4th Of July, originally uploaded by **** j a z z z i ***.

Giveaway Winner!

So everyone wants to know who won, I used a random number generator and counted down the comments.

I am pleased to announce that the winner of the handdyed fabrics is……..

Lynda! from String Alongs

Thanks all for playing!

WW Knit in Public Day 2009

This Saturday was World Wide Knit in Public Day. The Berkley Knitters made a good show of it and we headed out to a local park to enjoy the sunshine (although we all forgot sunscreen and ended up a bit pink).

There was a great spread with chocolate chip cookies, couscous salad, brie, baguette, tomatoes, cherries, mini-pitas, hummus, veggie spears and crackers.

The youngest attending member was very kean on the pitas and hummus.

We can’t wait till next year, we really must have another knitting picnic soon.

Fiber Files: Cotton

Mature cotton field, Cherokee County

The touch, the feel! Cotton is one of the most used fibers in the world, from your BVDs to your Egyptian 3,000 thread count sheets and your stonewashed whiskered bootcut low rise jeans.

The journey from field to garment is quite an amazing one, but I want to get a bit closer, if you know what I mean. I posted a while back about about the molecular structure of cellulose, this is called the micro-structure, today I want to talk about the macro-structure.

The figure above is cotton strands magnified 630 times by an electron microscope. On average cotton fibers are 1/8 – 2.5 inches long (0.32-6.35 cm) and the diameter of the fibers is generally between 16-20 micrometers, making is  one of the finest natural fibers. When they are growing on the bole cotton fibers are round, but processing causes them to collapse into flat twisted ribbons. This twisted structure is part of what helps such short fibers grab onto each other as they are spun into threads and yarns.

There is much more to cotton however then can be seen by the naked eye under a microscope. Cotton is made of many layers which are primarily cellulose.

Layer 1- The cuticle is a waxy protective layer that provides water resistance to the fibers as they are growing. This layer is removed by scouring during processing before spinning.

Layer 2- The primary wall is made up of  chains of cellulose called fibrils. These fibrals spiral around the fiber at 20-30 degree angles. Mature cotton fibers have thick primary walls, immature fibers do not and often collapse and tangle, causing neps (aka those little tangely bits) when the fibers are being carded and spun.

Layer 3- The winding layer is really the first part of the Secondary wall. It is made up of fibrils that run at 40-70 degress and spiral around the fiber. This layer helps support the rest of the secondary wall.

Layer 4- The secondary wall is the last layer and ts is actually made up of many layers of fibrils, each layer grows over a day and forms rings, kind of like a tree.  The fibrils in the secondary wall are different in the way they grow,  they do not really spirl, they change direction somewhat at random, making for a zig zag kind of formation. Weak sports can occur in the spots where the fibrils change direction and the winding layer helps compensate for this.

Layer 5- The lumen is not really a layer per say but rather the hallow tube that runs through the center of the fiber. When the fibers are growing this tube is filled with fluid but during processing it is emtpy and collapses, which results in the flat appearance of the fibers and the kidney bean appearance of cross sections of the fibers. The lumen is also part of what makes cotton so very absorbent.

All these layers of fibrils make for a densely packed fibers, ever notice how much heavier a cotton sweater is then a wool one? Also, as the fibrils layer around each other they make tons of microscopic capillaries, which also ups cottons absorbency.  Cotton is a very hydrophilic (water loving) fiber and the cool thing about cotton fiber is when it is gets wet it swells and unlike a lot of other fibers (like silk or rayon) instead of getting weaker, it gets stronger. Any boater can tell you, cotton makes great sailing rope because it takes a soaking and then just works even better.

For more technical information on cotton then you would ever need to wear a t-shirt and be comfortable check out the info page at Cotton Inc. (The Touch The Feel, you know the guys that made the commericals). There you can find out more about cotton’s absorbency powers, tencile strength, thermal properties, and more that would make for a very long blog post.

Handdyed Fabric Giveaway!

Remember back in May when we did tie-dye for the WEF and I said we also dyed some fabric? Well here, finally, are the pictures! I am very happy with the way they turned out, the best part it they are so simple to do and a great way to use up the last bits of dye from bigger dye projects.  The fabric is scrap yardage of Kona Cotton which takes dye fantastically.

So, now that you are drooling, here is the best part. If you leave me a comment between now and next Tuesday you can have a chance to win some hunks of these fabrics plue one of the Blueprints that Libby and I made last weekend! The fabrics are all different sizes but they average somewhere around a 1/4 of a yard and 45 inches wide.

The winner will be picked at random and posted on Tuesday.  Good luck!

Maker Faire 2009

I don’t know if I have ever been in a place with so many talented, crafty, DIYers in one place before in my life. There was even more stuff that we just didn’t manage to see and we can’t wait to go back next year.  I think the botton above by Sean says it all. For more pictures click the mosaic.

Solar Surface Design

This weekend Libby and I had some fun with Cyanotype sun printing. We used Blueprints on Fabric squares and a dried sea fan I got a while ago from Urban Indigo. Rather appropriate for Ocean Day.