sweetgeorgia

Supernatural SweetGeorgia

There’s more than one way to get colour on yarn.

Tomorrow when we re-open the shop, we’ll be offering a collection of yarns and fibres under the name “Supernatural SweetGeorgia”. Natural and plant dyes create some of the most beautifully nuanced and luscious colours in our history. These colours are full of life and energy. Supernatural SweetGeorgia is our collection of yarns and fibres from organic, sustainable and renewable sources that are hand-dyed with natural and plant dyes. Multiple overdyes and multi-step processes… there’s a whole lot of love in these yarns.

As a knitter, spinner and weaver, I am well aware of the beauty and benefits of using natural fibres like silk, wool, or linen. But then things became more a little complicated with the release of products like soy silk, bamboo, ingeo, organic wool, and organic cotton. What’s good to use? What’s responsible to use? How do I sort out the options? I am, more than ever, conflicted about the choices.

We are inundated with publicity about “green” products and “sustainability”… just this month’s Knit.1 mag is entitled “The Green Issue” in which they discuss knitting, eco-activism, and organic yarns. Vogue Patterns’ April/May 2008 issue has an article called “Sewing Green” which describes all eco-friendly fabrics. Rowan’s latest magazine features their new “green” line called PureLife. There is Amy Singer’s book “No Sheep For You” which details all sorts of alternative natural fibres… and also Shannon Okey’s new book “Alt Fiber” which delves into even more obscure alternative fibres like pineapple ramie and kenaf. You can’t escape what seems like the immense pressure to make the right and responsible choice.

Treehugger simultaneously evangelizes about the benefits of bamboo textiles while also considering that maybe bamboo textiles aren’t really sustainable or organic. Confused? Yeah, me too. I think it’s all too easy to idealize any one particular “new” fibre or textile and to put something on a pedestal without investigation or scrutiny. In no way do I believe that I have the answers… but I am committed to looking at and studying different options while also encouraging everyone to do the same. Be open and vigilant. Here are some places to start:

• Sustainability in Textiles: An Overview (Worsted Witch)
• Greensleeves: Sustainability in the Fiber & Textile Arts (Worsted Witch)
• Eco-Tip: Mini Directory of Green Fabrics (TreeHugger)
• Sustainable Clothing: Emerging Standards (OrganicClothing)
• Tencel: Sustainable but not necessarily healthy (OrganicClothing)
• Bamboo: Facts behind the Fiber (OrganicClothing)
• Green Knitter: Natural, Organic and Eco-friendly Yarn Chart

In tomorrow’s update, we’ll have some naturally dyed bamboo and silk yarns. And in future updates, we’ll also have organic wools in worsted weight. I’ve just dyed some in pomegranate and it’s lovely, squishy stuff. Pomegranate-dyed organic merino yarn might not entirely save the world, but hey, I’m trying.

1% of the proceeds from the Supernatural SweetGeorgia collection will be directed to OnePercentForThePlanet, an alliance of businesses committed to leveraging their resources to create a healthier planet. Members donate at least 1% of their annual net revenues to environmental organizations worldwide.

Tangled up.

I’ve been making warps. Many many warps. Mostly because I have a lot of yarn lying around… naturally dyed, undyed, synthetically dyed, commercially dyed… omg, that’s a lot of yarn. Rather than using handpainted yarn throughout the whole warp, I’ve taken to mixing it up with a bunch of other solid coloured yarns.

The six-yard warp will end up as two 2.5 yard scarves or shawls (I haven’t decided… there’s still a lot of handpainted yardage remaining that I want to use up)… each one will be woven with a different coloured weft.

The bamboo was dyed in a pot with a bunch of other fibres and took on so much less dye. The dye pot was a mix of cutch, cochineal and iron in various combinations with silk and bamboo in the pot. I probably wouldn’t wear any of these colours on their own, but optically blended together, they become more interesting. The weft will likely be plain undyed bamboo, and then the whole piece will go back into the dye pot. Maybe more cutch. We’ll see.

Finally, this is the silk yarn that came out of the same pot. Unplied DK-weight silk yarn to be woven with some 2-ply cutch-dyed silk yarn… it might be overwhelmingly cutchy brown. Hmm. But luckily everything can be overdyed and re-worked. In fact, I dropped a small plain weave silk sample that I wove last year into a cochineal dye pot earlier this week… and you know, I LOVE it. Multiple dyes, overdyes, piece dyeing… I want it.

Spinning New Fibres

What is it about new fibres that is intimidating? I bought little bags of ingeo, firestar, bamboo and soy silk last year on Salt Spring Island — did I spin it? Nope, not really. I dyed up a bunch of soy silk and started spinning it, but didn’t really like the feel… until…

Last Wednesday, through the Greater Vancouver Weavers and Spinners Guild, I attended the “Spinning New Fibres” workshop led by Kim McKenna (who designed the Salt Spring Island colourways for Treenway Silks). From 8:30 am to 4:00 pm, we spun everything from Viscose Rayon, Tencel and Bamboo to Ingeo, Soy Silk and Silk Latte. Most of the day was spent spinning samples of white/cream coloured fibres, making blends with merino and comparing samples. By the end of the day, we started playing with the coloured fibres in our goody bags and were mixing different coloured merino wools with various kinds of Firestar, Flash and Angelina. My blends were all made with my little Forsyth mini-combs and spun, worsted, directly from the comb.

Each of these “new” fibres has some interesting or beneficial feature. Although 100% handspun “Blending Nylon” or 100% “Fake Cashmere” might not be appealing, blending a bit of it with wool makes the final yarn stronger. Soy Silk on it’s own isn’t really fun to spin, but blending it up with wool makes it easier to spin and produces a loftier yarn. Even adding a bit of Viscose to a blend gives the yarn a slight glittery, shimmery look.

One interesting point though — for the same weight of fibre, natural silk is still less expensive than Silk Latte, Ingeo and Bamboo.

And speaking of new fibres, my Gotland fleece arrived already! I washed a little lock of it last night with some Dawn and hot water and it’s super clean and shiny. The fleece isn’t really smelly at all — I checked several times! Yum.

Edited to add: I was so excited about uploading these photos that I forgot to mention my favourite blends! One of my favourites was Ingeo — it seemed to give loft and structure. Good for blending with wimpy fibres (like adding crispness to alpaca). I liked the merino/Silk Latte blend — smooth, drapey, shiny — but expensive compared to real silk. And my absolute favourite — the deep chocolate coloured merino plus auburn alpaca plus copper flash. Yummy like dessert!