Cotton Sampler Finished!

Since I had a couple of unplanned days off, I managed to finish up the cotton sampler I started during Ravelry's Tour de Fleece. The main objective was to weave a scarf using singles spun from my home-grown cotton on the Bosworth book charkha. When I started, I was not very encouraged that I would ever get this project off the loom! I was throwing away as much, if not more, cotton than I was spinning. The charkha definitely had a BIG learning curve! I'm normally pretty confident in my spinning, but this was a real challenge. After a lesson from Susan at Yarnorama in Paige, I was finally getting the hang of it with only a little waste. As I neared the end, I could spin and weave an entire bobbin in an afternoon. The singles are pretty "rustic" (ie, thick and thin) but they make for an interesting scarf. At least that's what it is for the moment. I may cut it up and make coasters out of it.

In the photos below, the navy warp really sets off the colored cotton. The white came from seeds that I got when doing a spinning demo at the Burton Cotton Gin Festival. The brown seeds came from my friend Carolyn. And the green seeds I bought online for the exorbitant price of $12.75 for 10 seeds!

Tour de Fleece 2010

Joined a big group of spinners on Ravelry with the goal of getting as much spinning as possible done during the Tour de France. So far it's going pretty well, but I'm kinda having knitting withdrawal. I've really got the bug to start something lacy after a long hiatus. Just going to have to wait. My projects for the TdF are to spin 12oz of merino/tencel on the Lendrum into a 3-ply fingering weight yarn for a yet to be determined project; spin enough white, green, and brown cotton to weave a simple scarf; and to finish dehairing the qiviut. Today is day 7, and I've posted some photos of my progress below.


The honey bobbin is finished, and just getting started on the rust. Sure has a beautiful sheen!


3 bobbins filled on the Bosworth book charkha. I'm going to have to do something nice for Susan at Yarnorama for getting me started.


Bought this beautiful walnut shuttle from Jonathan Bosworth of Journey Wheels that holds the charkha bobbins. Woo-hoo! No winding off! Just pop it in and start weaving!


Photo showing the 3 cottons I grew for this project


Ahhh! Luxury! Can hardly wait to get through cleaning this so I can start spinning!

It's Charkha Time!

On our way from Austin to Lexington yesterday, I talked James into stopping at Yarnorama in Paige so that I could look at weaving yarns for some dish towels. What a great little shop! Knitting, spinning, weaving, dyeing - Susan has it all. We got to talking a bit about spinning wheels and I mentioned that I had bought a Bosworth charkha, but just couldn't seem to get the hang of spinning on it. And plying had been a total disaster. So she pulled hers out, and in about 5 minutes I was ready to rush home and give it another try. She also showed me a weaving shuttle that holds the charkha bobbins, so I can just use my singles to weave and there's no need to transfer them to another bobbin or ply (unless I just want to - not!). Woo-hoo! So guess what I'm going to be doing this weekend!