Ginger writes:
A spider in my house is perfectly safe. This has nothing to do with a love of spiders, or an eco-friendly need to spare bug eating predators, or even a Buddha-like moral sense. No. I have such a phobia of spiders that I can’t stay in the same room or calmly comment about a spider’s presence so someone else can deal with the “emergency.” They are perfectly safe because I can’t get close enough to sweep one out the door — never mind kill one.
Spider Silk Textile Panel (Lamba Akotifahana), 2008. Madagascar. Seven panels joined: spider silk, plain weave with supplementary brocading wefts and patterning warps. Source: Art Institute of Chicago.
Picture, if you will, a large spider innocently walking across a room, blocking the only exit. And then picture a woman standing on a step stool (spider might run across the floor in her direction) with a broom to keep said spider at bay and wearing dishwashing gloves (spider might actually touch the broom). Her heart is pounding; she is sweating profusely. My son was amused, especially since his mother squealed like a little girl as he scooped up the spider and took it outside. I was decidedly NOT amused!
Now imagine the mix of fascination and revulsion I felt when I read about a piece of fabric woven from golden orb spiders’ webs! (Read some amazing exhibition notes from The Art Institute of Chicago and The American Museum of Natural History and the Victoria and Albert Museum on their spider silk textiles.) I had to read the articles and then look at the pictures of the fabric. It is an amazing golden color that shimmers and has a brilliant visual texture. It is absolutely stunning. Simply, wordlessly stunning! Who did it and how? Here’s a link to a high-res photo of the spider itself.
Detail of an embroidered cape made of spider silk, made by Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley, 2011. Source: Victoria and Albert Museum.
A spider’s web is a sticky net in which it snares its supper. And the golden orb spider (Nephila spp.) spins one that can span 15-20 feet, or more! Their webs are elastic and amazingly tough, and yes, they are golden in color. I live in Florida where golden orb spiders are ubiquitous. Here they are called banana spiders because of their large yellow abdomens. The spider that lives in that web is HUGE!
I will never weave a fabric made from the filaments of any spider web. I can’t touch it or even begin to imagine collecting the raw material! But I’m grateful that some else can. I’d love to see the shawl in person but I don’t think I could ever actually touch it. So spiders and their webs are perfectly safe from me…give me a venomous reptile any time!
Join Ewephoric Fibers for an informative and fun-filled day of spinning. In the morning portion of the workshop, we will spin wild roving and batts. In the afternoon, we will work on plying to make the best possible yarns. While we are learning about wonderful fibers, we will also be helping a most worthy cause, Peaceful Paths. This non-profit group assists women moving out of abusive situations into a position of self-sufficiency and strength. Ten percent of every workshop fee will go to Peaceful Paths. Feel free to bring a non-perishable food donation for their food pantry. Details after the jump…
Ginger writes: We all have fiber and or yarn stashes that are squirreled away awaiting that perfect project. We have all had the experience of opening our stash and, horror of horrors, discover a little cloud of moths! Or you find a little pile of gritty dust. Your natural fibers can become dinner for moths, silverfish, roaches and other insects. Mice also find that nice warm fluff a fine place to raise a family. So how do you protect your treasures from unwanted company and damage?
There are many compounds that can be used to protect your fiber or yarn. My grandmother used mothballs made from naphthalene. Whenever I encounter that smell, it triggers memories of my grandmother knitting wonderful items. Naphthalene, however, is flammable so it is no longer used. The current compound used in mothballs — 1,4-dichlorobenzene — smells about the same! These work by sublimating, going from a solid state to a gas state, which means you have to replace them on a regular basis. The fumes are toxic to moths and other bugs, and theyrepel mice. However, the fumes are also toxic to people, so if you are going to use them, be sure to open your storage containers in a well-ventilated area.
While mothballs are very effective, it can be difficult to get rid of the smell. Even washing won’t entirely remove the odor. Placing the fiber, yarn, or clothing in the sun for several hours helps to volatilize the last of the molecules and remove the smell. Mothballs have also been recently listed as a potential carcinogen.
So what are the alternatives? There are a variety of herbs and spices that can be used to keep unwanted pests at bay. Sachets made of lavender and calendula flowers or rosemary, mint, or cloves will not only repel pests, they will also smell wonderful! Non-moth ball alternatives only repel insects; they do not kill them. Good fiber hygiene is the best way of protecting your precious fibers, yarns, and wool/alpaca garments.
Washed Shetland, Ready to Store (photo by Jane D.)
Some dos and don’ts:
Just like good personal hygiene, good fiber hygiene starts with bathing. Wash your grease or dusty alpaca fleece before you add it to your stash. Bugs will flock to dirty fleece before clean fleece. This applies to any protein fiber such as wool, alpaca, camel, silk, etc.
Do not store fibers in plastic where the plastic actually touches the fibers. Rabbit angora, in particular, and other very fine fibers have a tendency to mat if they are against the plastic. Store your fleeces in pillowcases then place them into large zip-top type bags. Smaller items like yarns, roving, and clothing can be wrapped in non-acid, non-dyed paper and then into a zip-top bag. Squeeze out most of the air and your fibers will be protected from outside attack. Use heavy plastic bags as moths can eat through lightweight plastic.
Check your fibers or clothes on a regular basis and look for infestation. If you have stored your items in zip-top bags, any problem should be contained, literally! If you are suspicious of any item, you can either freeze it for at least two days or put it into the microwave for a couple of minutes. If microwaving, do not use any plastic or acrylic ties or bags. These can melt into the surface of the fiber. If a bag is infested, just throw the whole thing away.
So you have found a moth. Now what? First you need to determine if you need to worry. If the moth is flying around in the middle of the day, it is most likely a flour moth. These small gray-brown moths get into dry packaged goods like dry pet foods, oatmeal, pasta, and rice. You generally find them flying around these items in the pantry. These moths do NOT get into your fibers and are not really a problem to protein fibers, other than being a pest. A trip to your friendly hardware store to get some flour moth traps will deal with this problem. Wool moths look very similar and can be difficult to tell apart, but they do not like the light and, like little vampires, they will avoid it at all costs! If you pull out a woolen item, fiber, yarn, clothing, and suddenly have moths about, it is time to worry and look for infestation.
If you determine that you have wool moths, dispose of the item and carefully check any other material that is nearby. If unsure, freeze or microwave any suspicious fibers then repackage in cloth and a plastic bag. This is a time to be absolutely ruthless!
And Care2.com also has some excellent advice for deterring moths and making sachets. Here’s their recipe for Natural Repellent Sachets (you can find the ingredients in bulk at most health food stores).
2 ounces each of dried rosemary and mint
1 ounce each of dried thyme and ginseng
8 ounces of whole cloves
Combine the ingredients in a large bowl. Blend. Make sachets by choosing a 4″ x 4″ piece of natural fiber with a tight weave, such as silk. Sew three sides together, then fill with the herbs and sew the fourth side shut. You can adapt this pattern to any size you want (2 x 2 is the traditional size for the undergarments drawer, for example). A good idea for small sachets is to fill cotton teabags sold for making your own tea (these are often sold in health food stores). If you are really in a rush, just tie the herbs up in a cotton bandana or handkerchief; place the herbs in the middle, gather the edges together, and tie with a ribbon. Variation: Other herbs that are good for repelling moths include lavender, lemon, sweet woodruff, and tansy.
Ginger writes: Why do you spin? Why in this day and age of readily available, immediate gratification yarn stores and online shops would you want to spin individual strands of fibers into yarn?
Me? Why do I spin? There are reasons I can delineate and many others I simply cannot.
I spin to produce the specific yarn I want for a specific project. Sometimes I find a pattern that I particularly like and plan out the yarn I will use. I select the fleece, wash, dye, card, and then spin to the weight I want. I like to select the different fibers, blend them, and plan out the yarn in advance. Or I select the roving I like that is the appropriate fiber content for the project, sometimes already dyed, sometimes not. I figure how much I am going to need and while I am spinning the yarn I review the pattern to decide how much modification it needs. More often I write my own pattern. You cannot get this kind of start-to-finish satisfaction in store bought yarns. But this is not the primary reason I spin yarn.
Ginger and Bunny
I spin because I am very tactile. I love the feel of the fibers, especially very soft fleeces still warm from the sheep or alpaca they were just sheared off of. I love the sensation of warmth or coolness the fibers exhibit. I love the sweet hay smell and feel of lanolin from a clean, fresh sheep fleece. I am amazed as I watch the twist capture fragile individual fibers and make them into a strong, stable yarn. Fiber is a feast for all the senses, except perhaps taste!
I spin to connect with a distant past that is very hard to define. When I spin, I feel a connecting thread that stretches back through time and space to the first woman who figured it out. I feel as if I can close my eyes, open them, and be in some other time and place and I would not be surprised at all! As the fibers flow through my fingers, I experience an internal calm that is unique to this particular activity. Spinning feels as natural to me as walking. I am sometimes amazed that I have not done it my whole life, only the last 30 years! Spinning is my Zen. It quiets and calms my mind. The day’s tension drains away as I spin.
Many years ago I had Lyme Disease. During the course of the illness I became severely neurologically impaired. I could not walk without help, brush my hair, feed myself or do any of the many things we take for granted. I lost my long-term and photographic memory as well as my short-term memory and I was aphasic, the wrong words came out of my mouth. I could not remember how a sentence started so I could not carry on a conversation for many months. On the other hand, I could think and reason, I just could not say the correct words! I spent a year relearning basic skills and speech.
One of the first physical things I could do once I could get around on my own was spin. I still couldn’t carry on a conversation, could barely brush my hair or feed myself, but I could spin. How glorious that was! It was a huge part of my recovery. As I look back on it now, I realize that I had close to my 10,000 hours of ‘practice’ in spinning before I became ill. According to Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers: The Story of Success, you need to spend 10,000 hours of doing something before you can truly become an expert and really excel in that field. I don’t know that I excelled at spinning, in fact I feel like a merely competent spinner most of the time, but the physical and mental memory was present even if the rest of my brain had not caught up yet! So for a year I spun for the simple joy of spinning.
I spin to connect to the most basic part of my being, to be sure the that the connecting thread stretching back to my very origins is still intact. I allow the tactile part of spinning to take over and carry me through the most difficult parts of my life. It helps to keep me on an even keel. It is my lifeline.
It’s time for me to stop talking about wanting to do a newsletter and start writing a newsletter! I’ve been spinning for a long time now, about 30 years. I got my first spinning wheel for Christmas the first year on the NJ farm. My then husband gave me an Ashford Traveler and told me that he wanted a wool sweater from one of the sheep in the yard. Not to be defeated by a box of kindling, I stained and built the wheel and did a pretty good job! Along with the wheel, I received The Joy of Spinning by Marilyn Kluger. I do not recommend learning to spin from a book, but it certainly is doable. Pictures in a book do not convey the same clarity as a YouTube video, or much better, a one-on-one experience. After a frustrating couple of weeks I started to ‘get’ it and then found a small shop about an hour away where I was able to take a lesson. The “aha” moment happened and I was hooked!
Named for the contrasts of highlight and shadow formed by twisted ribs framing delicate eyelets, this top-down pattern is written for knitting on two circular needles. It features Priscilla Wild’s short row heel (No muss! No fuss! No wraps! No holes!) and a kitchener-free toe.
Size: Women’s Medium/ U.S. W8-9. Yarn: Approximately 350 yards of fingering weight (shown in Aslan Trends Santa Fe — two skeins required). Allow more yarn if you want a taller sock or if you are knitting for longer feet. Gauge: 8 stitches per inch. Needles: Two 24″-long circular needles in U.S. 1 / 2.5mm or size needed to obtain gauge.
