posts tagged ‘soy silk’

Spinning New Fibres

Monday, January 30th, 2006

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…

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Pile ‘o new fibre samples

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.

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Rayon Fibres: Viscose, Tencel and Bamboo compared with natural silks
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Left: Cria Alpaca blends. Right: Azlon fibres (regenerated protein) of Ingeo (corn), Soy Silk (tofu), Silk Latte (milk)
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Left: Merino and Firestar blends. Right: Glittery blends with Flash and different kinds of Angelina

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!

Not quite ready for their closeups

Thursday, September 15th, 2005

The Manly Sweater (after a year of working on it, off and on) is done! But it’s still drying. I am gifting it to the DH for our anniversary, but again, it’s still drying. It was easy to knit, but I think the armholes are too small…

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Manly Me

Look what else is drying… dyed Soy Silk! This stuff is weird. It looks like silk and acts like silk, but is kind of “crunchy” like cotton. I’m looking forward to seeing how it will spin!

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Soy Silk hanging to dry

And here’s more fibre that’s drying…

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Red and Yellow make Orange?

That’s Border Leicester roving that I bought in Salt Spring this summer. It’s soft, but not soft like merino! soft. So I’m making…

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Jayne and his hat

… a Jayne Cobb hat! If you’ve seen Joss Whedon’s Firefly, you’ll know this is the hat that Jayne receives in the mail, handknit by his mom. I’m going to card (blending the red and yellow to make orange!) and spin up the yarn this weekend and knit it up next weekend when my friends and I get together for a Firefly marathon. All this is prep for the Serenity movie that comes out on September 30. If you want to make one too, this lovely gal has written a pattern for it here…

about sweetgeorgia

Driven by an obsessive, passionate and often tumultuous relationship with colour, Felicia Lo is the owner of SweetGeorgia Yarns, a handpainted yarn company based in Vancouver. Founded in 2005, SweetGeorgia Yarns is about intense, relentless and unapologetic colour.

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