The organic cotton warp I was working on in March has come to an end. I managed to weave three long table runners each in a different natural handspun cotton. No dyes used! There is Sarepta Brown cotton on the left, natural Acala cotton on the right, and natural green cotton at the bottom.
After washing, the colour transformation in the green was quite remarkable. The punis and storage bobbin below show the natural green as it looks before washing in hot water or soaking for 30 minutes in ammonia. The runner is an example of the "after" wash colouring.
The runners are all woven to a generous length for either my kitchen table or a couple of display chests I have in the living room.
I'm very happy with the way they turned out.
When the runners were complete I still had some warp left and played around a bit with other weaving techniques including a pick up lace and traveling inlay.
7 comments:
Lovely. Did you spin the cotton and then weave? I would love to get my hands on yarn from sarepta cotton to weave with. Well done!
Yes, Ann. The warp was a gift, but I spun all the cotton for the weft and then wove it into the three table runners and the little experiments I did at the end of the warp.
I purchased the unspun cotton sliver, both the Sarepta and the natural green, from Anthony Lionel Mullins of Sarepta Brown Cotton. If you aren't interested in spinning your own I do believe he also sells cotton that has been spun at a mill. https://www.facebook.com/SareptaBrownCotton
These runners are beautiful. The color change in the green cotton is remarkable. When you soak in ammonia, is that a solution diluted with water? All around splendid!
According to the Spin-Off article I read about the process, drygardening, you use straight ammonia, no dilution. Of course this is standard household ammonia which might not be as potent as some? Actually, what I used was Sudsy Lemon Ammonia, so likely had small amounts of other additives. It still worked well though!
Thanks, Marlene. I will look for the Spin-Off article. The Sudsy Lemon Ammonia apparently did work well! The color change is so amazing and beautiful!
Here's a link to the article drygardening. https://spinoffmagazine.com/seeing-green-palo-verde-and-sea-green-cotton-sliver/
Thanks again, Marlene. I did find this article doing a Google search yesterday morning after reading your first reply, but I very much appreciate your posting it as a comment. Now others can easily find it, too. When searching, I had also found this additional Spin-Off article online: https://spinoffmagazine.com/color-transformation-in-naturally-colored-cotton/
So interesting about these colored cotton change possibilities!
I really appreciate your blog and your posts to Ravelry. Thanks for sharing your amazing work!
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