Monday, September 5, 2011

Plenty o' Cotton

I've finally gotten a chance to spin some of the cotton my Mom grew for me last year.  I keep saying that it's pretty astounding to see how much cotton fiber is on one little bitty cotton seed.  I spun a handfun (about 200 seeds) of the homegrown cotton.  Have a look at this:
This is the 2-ply skein of about 175 yards of cotton and the seeds it came from.  Since it was about 200 seeds, that means, on average, there was almost 2 yards of fiber on each seed.  Granted that this has be spun pretty finely but still. 

The other interesting thing about this cotton is how much silkier it was than the commercial stuff.  I tried to get a photo that would show how silky it looked but I just couldn't get it to show up.  This stuff was silky and bright white.

This is the cotton up against the while cormo that's waiting to be spun.  I hope the color shows up on the screen.  LOVE IT.

2 comments:

Debbie B. said...

You hooked me on cotton when you taught at Lexington Ky. I tried planting the seeds from that cotton. They didn't germinate. Where could I get seeds for next year?

Dianna Smith said...

Send me you email address and I'll send you some. You can also buy seed cotton from Cotton Clouds in AZ. Just google their website. Just remember, cotton is very light so don't order more than 1 bag to begin with!