In addition to bast fiber, milkweed produces a cotton-like fiber from its seeds known as floss. Textile Engineering College, Noakhali. I've been wanting to try my hand at getting fibers from milkweed, processing them, and spinning them. The milkweed gin’s components include hopper, roller, … Milkweed fiber was used during World War II as substitutes for Kapok in lifebuoys. Then dumping both into the makeshift seed separator contraption; and giving it a few spins by using the pipe lever. The milkweed seed pods produce a silky lightweight fuzz, called silk or floss. I don't know. I do have a flax break, but I wasn't sure the milkweed would stand up to the flax break. Milkweed fiber. Milkweed fiber is a vegetable seed fiber. The threads were as long as the stalk. Fibers from hemp, flax, dogbane, milkweed and nettle have been used for thousands of years to produce textiles, cordage, netting, etc. Hand Spun Novelty We also handspin our wool with all kinds of novelties including angelina, vintage fabric, and even milkweed. Cause, it makes a soft and breathable fabric that is absorbent and comfortable. When it was done it feels like angora and spins easily. The fibers are shiny and white: So here's the problem, how to release the wonderful, white, shiny fiber from the thin layer of bark? Really. Then one day someone told me that it can be spun. Does anyone know of any sources? Milkweed is a unique natural cellulose fiber that has a completely hollow center and low density (0.9 g cm −3) unlike any other natural cellulose fiber. There is a narrow window of time in which it has to be collected the seeds. I'm sure that this would clean up and lighten up even more with such treatment, but after just a couple of vigorous washings, and letting it dry,  I wound it into a center-pull ball for knitting: I'll probably fold it over, add a crocheted edge while binding two sides together, and keep the top open to make a small pouch to hold my stitch markers.. A Comparative Study on the Dyeability of Stabraq (Milkweed) Fibers with Reactive Dyes by Z. Bahreini and A. Kiumarsi, Archana Jain, Deepali Rastogi, Bhawana Chanana, M.S.Parmar, Aditi Dhama “Extraction Of Cornhusk Fibres For Textile Usages” IOSR Journal of Polymer and Textile Engineering (IOSR-JPTE) e-ISSN: 2348-019X, p-ISSN: 2348-0181, Volume 4, Issue 1 (Jan. -Feb. 2017), PP 29-34, Milkweeds: A Conservation Practitioner’s Guide by Brianna Borders and Eric Lee-Mäder, Hossein Hasani, M. Zarrebini, S. Hassanzadeh “Evaluating the Acoustic Properties of Estabragh (Milkweed)/Hollow-Polyester Nonwovens for Automotive Applications” Published 2013, Materials Science, Journal of Textile Science & Engineering, DOI:10.4172/2165-8064.1000157, https://xerces.org/blog/harvesting-milkweed-seed-pod-and-plan, https://fashionista.com/2020/01/future-sustainable-fashion-materials-milkweed-floss. Organic cotton yarn and sliver. I'm sure there is a way. So, we have to find an alternative of cotton. Email: mh18.bd@gmail.com. So shiny and soft it was! 4. Blending & Spinning Milkweed. Hi, Unknown!Yes, I think that is a downside to collecting over-wintered stalks. I finally had the time to give it a try, so I went to glean a few stalks from an area that I know had milkweed growing last summer. There are several YouTube videos that show this process for nettles. It was heart breaking to break all of that wonderful, long shiny fiber up. It's small, but a nice size to hold stitch markers:, From plant to pouch took about a day and a half. The milkweed plant produces a fiber that can be used by spinners. If we can reduce the natural weakness of milkweed fiber by blending with other fiber we can get a better result than cotton. This substance makes milkweed fibre too brittle for spinning. Milkweed is the only larval food for the Monarch Butterfly and food for many other invertebrates. Opening the lid afterward sent fluff flying everywhere. Fluff right in above photo, single ply top left, double ply hanks bottom left. It is the most time-consuming process. In this regard, numerous researchers [15–20] have studied the possibilities of using Milkweed fibers as alternative natural resource. Milkweed yarn from fresh stalks; front to back: 1 & 2= hand twisted cordage with long and medium fibers mixed; 3 & 4 = combed and spun with distaff and cross arm spindle--longest then medium fibers; 5 & 6 - carded and spun from rolags with cross arm spindle, plied and singles; all skeins boiled for approx 1 hr in water with a couple of T of washing soda It is a very time-consuming process to separate the two. Md. Separate seeds from fluff: The seeds are attached to the fluff so that it can easily blow away in the wind to reproduce. Roll into rolag: When the fibers are all aligned, then it will be rolled into a machine. Spin: By using a wheel, milkweed fiber finally is hand-spun all the different samples. Thanks so much for your well written article. I washed the yarn vigorously with hot water and soap. But it is also one of the most environmentally damaging of all fibers utilized in the textile and apparel industry. It is made up of individual fibres that are about 1 to 3 cm in length and 20 to 50 microns in diameter. I've never seen milkweed growing here, but I did try this with the spreading dogbane that grows everywhere, thinking it might give me some idea of the fiber's suitability for spinning. I do not have time to prepare my own. From top:Milkweed floss and washed fleece, handcarded rolag, and handspun two-ply yarn. She said if you spin bast fibers dry, you will get a lot of fiber breakage. Milkweed floss is collected, processed, and dyed by hand. Milkweed seedpod fiber, or floss, tends to create a brittle yarn when spun alone. Below, you can see the core to the left, and the bark/fiber layer peeling off to the right. There are 12 milkweed yarn for sale on Etsy, and they cost $13.36 on average. I will have to give this a try, too, once I get some milkweed established in my own garden. It's completely against their nature which is to catch moisture and disperse it where needed. I dye mostly with natural dyes and acid dyes, but for most of the fiber, I needed fiber reactive dyes. Processing, spinning and knitting milkweed fiber, Finding Wonderland, the Writing YA Weblog, Karly Kirkpatrick, Young Adult Author in an Epublished World. But one person drinks same amount in 2.5 years. Processing of Milkweed Fiber (Traditional): 1. The seeds support prairie restorations and the Monarchs Handcrafted, hand-dyed fibers for exceptional yarn spinning experiences. Encore3, a Canadian company, created milkweed fiber-based kits that absorb 53 gallons of oil at a rate of .06 gallons per minute. Twine was made from the bark of the milkweed fiber, a plant indigenous to the Thompson River area. Rollag is basically just a concentrated form of the blended fibers that one spins with. Hopefully, if I can figure out how retain a nice length on the fibers, I can make a prettier, stronger, and finer yarn from milkweed in the future. Milkweed floss: luster of silk, warmth of wool. If you want the specific instructions from the issue, email me, I'd be happy to share.Deb Frazierdeb@debfdesigns.com, Try leaving the milk weed, stalks and all to sit in water for several weeks to months. And by wet she meant slightly damp. Into yarn. It is known as vegetable silk, stabraq, asclepias, zijdeplant, milkweed floss and so on. Seeds fall to the bottom and the fluff floats around the top. I have yucca, but I need dogbane and milkweed. As I am peeling the skin off, the fibres would break apart. Well many reasons: 1 - It's important! I watched a woman peel the outer bark away when the milkweed plant was green. Sustainability becomes an increasingly pressing priority in textile industry. As it is, I think this yarn is not very strong - certainly not nearly as strong as linen. Milkweed made material is used as upholstery padding and insulation material. Text Res J 63(8):443–450 CrossRef Google Scholar. We handspin our wool on spinning wheels and can blend in dyed Rambouillet for color or combine with other natural wool fibers. You may also like: Milk or Casein Fiber: An Overview. The ideally, the bark and wood will break down leaving just the fibers. Collect seedpods: Seed pods are only ripe during summer and into fall. Wool was selected because it is the easiest fiber to learn how to spin with, making it the obvious choice for a person, like me, who had no experience with spinning. Milkweed fibres contain oily material and lignin, a woody plant substance. Card fibers: Once the correct ratios are measured, then it needed to be carded. The company is featured in an article in the Nicole Clark from ColeMama Creations: ... Sarah Buchanan works with milkweed, essentially unheard of in the world of spinning. 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Some did break, but they were more than long enough to spin. Milkweed floss is used in such water-safety equipment as life jackets and belts. reaction again on mouth from fluff flying see below. in Textile Engineering This is where I entered the milkweed picture in the mid-1980s. Nov 24, 2012 - I have always been enamored of milkweed fluff. It floats beautifully, shimmers in the sun, it's soft and light and magical. Thank you! Fibers from hemp, flax, dogbane, milkweed and nettle have been used for thousands of years to produce textiles, cordage, netting, etc. She hung the flax type fiber over a drying rack and then she worked at splitting the strips of fiber into thread. You guessed it: brown. Drean J-YF, Patry JJ, Lombard GF, Weltrowski M (1993) Mechanical characterization and behavior in spinning processing of milkweed fibers. The low density of milkweed fibers will allow the incorporation of higher amounts of fiber per unit weight of a composite, which is expected to lead to lightweight composites with better properties. The spinning was challenging, it's not an easy fiber to spin in this condition, but I got it done. At this stage, after sitting out in the elements, the stalks break easily and it's easy to dislodge the pithy core from the bark/fiber layer. Author of this Article: Most of the bark is broken up and falls away, but the fiber is also broken, and not all of the bark is released. I'm going to experiment with this too. It has to brush the two fibers over and over again until it’s all evenly lined up in the same direction. The seedpods containing the floss which are mechanically processed. If you gather milkweed and nettle in the early spring, after the dead stalks have been sitting out all winter, it saves you the trouble of retting. As Manager ofCorporate Ventures for Standard Oil, I was in charge of starting up newbusinesses and was asked to take a look at the milkweed opportunity. Fibers from hemp, flax, dogbane, milkweed and nettle have been used for thousands of years to produce textiles, cordage, netting, etc. The machine is similar to the better-known cotton gin, which separates cotton fibers from their seeds. I hope to find out how to extract the fibers without breaking them all up with carding. Looking forward to repeating with hopefully even better results in the future.. It has the same latexy sap as milkweed, but shorter fluff in smaller seedpods. Its cultivation and textile processing require less water than cotton and can give excellent output to making apparel. Handmade tahklis spindles and resin art spinning bowls. Here is the two-ply on the wheel:, I ended up with about 17 yards of sport-weight, two-ply yarn:. Also, I have found grabs inside the stalks sometimes. From the bark, the finest of twine could be made, and from the seed, a soft down was obtained. I was nervous about using them for the first time on such a big project. Did you scroll all this way to get facts about milkweed yarn? Milkweed is soft, buoyant, lustrous floss is yellowish-white in colour. Duringthe process, I made contact with William G. Wilson of Kimberly-Clark in Neenah,Wisconsin, who was looking for someone who knew how to grow milkweed. Hi Anonymous!I found a site that says it sells dogbane stalks. Weigh fibers: Then select milkweed fluff, according to different ratios of wool to which are wanted to attempt to spin. Copy the address and then paste it into your browser, then scroll all the way to the bottom of the page: http://www.primitiveways.com/cordage_video.htmlGood luck! A cotton made shirt requires 2,700 litters of water. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. 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