Poonies become yarn

[altivo]

Poonies become yarn
Originally uploaded by Altivo

Back on July 22 I posted about dyeing cotton poonies yellow and blue. I'm now about half finished with the job of spinning them and plying the resulting thread into a lace weight yarn for knitting.

Here is a photo of the Bosworth book charkha I am using to spin the dyed poonies into thread. Two strands of the thread are then plied together in the opposite direction using a spinning wheel. Note poonies on the right, finished 2-ply yarn on the left. This yarn is coming out to about 2400 to 2800 yards per pound and I plan to knit a lacy scarf from it.

Comments

[silver-kiden.livejournal.com]

i want to play with it and figure out exactly how it works now o..o

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Mostly it works by practice and a little skill. The charkha itself is a very simple device. There's a belt from the large wheel on the right that goes around a small pulley you can't see under the medium-sized wheel in the center. The small pulley turns on the same axle as the medium-sized wooden wheel, and another belt (thin string, but you can see if you go to the enlarged view on Flickr) goes from there to the spindle bearing (shiny metal near the left end.) A spindle, which is just a thin steel rod with a sharp point at one end, is inserted into the metal bearing.

One turn on the large wheel (which has a handle, you just can't see it in the photo) makes the spindle go around 70 times. So the machine itself is just a simple turn multiplier.

The actual spinning is done by working the prepared cotton fiber against the point of the turning spindle. This is entirely a hand skill that must be learned. The charkha does nothing but turn the spindle at a high rate of speed. ;D

Charkhas are ideal for cotton spinning precisely because they develop a high rate of twist. A typical spinning wheel (made for wool or flax) has a turn ratio of between 8:1 and 20:1. Because cotton fibers are so short compared to wool or linen, cotton spinning requires ten to twenty times the number of twists in a given length of thread in order to hold together. You can spin cotton on a standard spinning wheel, and I've done a fair amount of it that way, but it goes much slower because you are always waiting for any length of yarn to be twisted tightly enough to become stable.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this.

And the cotton looks very nice. If it was me, I could wish there was more blue visible, perhaps... anyway, it's going to make an awesome scarf. Are you keeping or selling?

dyeing

[(Anonymous)]

I love to spin those Indian poonies. It is good to see that they can be dyed then spun. I wondered about that. Nice work!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The scarf will go into the show in October. I'll probably put a price on it that at least partly reflects the number of hours of work, which means of course that it won't sell. They never do. It will end up as a Christmas gift, most likely.

And yes, I intended more blue than I got. I will be trying this again and using blue dye first, then the yellow, allowing much more blue and less yellow. ;D

Re: dyeing

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yup, you can dye them yourself. Be sure to let them soak long enough in the dye bath to get color all the way through (unless you want occasional white areas, as I did.)

It's well worth doing your own dye. The plain white poonies are selling for $16 for 100g or 4oz most places. You can get dyed ones, but they sell for $16 for 25g or 1oz. So the price goes up four times when they are dyed. One 4oz bundle would cost $64 pre-dyed. That's $256 per pound, compared with $64 per pound for poonies or $32 or less per pound for ginned, carded cotton roving.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Are poonies like hoorsies?

Hehe do the poonies have paffers? *gets a bad case of the giggles and falls off his chair*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*gives you a severe look*

I didn't make up those words. I only use 'em.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I know but I always imagine you as a studious serious mature equine then when you say such cute words it just always cracks me up.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*gives you a good paff on the rear*

That'll teach you a lesson, kitty.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

*falls off his chair with the giggles* :D