Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Saxon Blue on Milk Protein yarn






 

Another two dreams come true. The spun bundle is milk fiber, made from milk. It fascinated me as soon as I heard of it. Milk has a protein, casein, that can make things like a plastic. 

I don’t have exact details on the source of my roving but it’s supposed to use waste milk, not food milk, when there is more than can be sold. This came from World of Wool’s online shop. A UK shop with an absolutely charming address, every line cuter than the last:

Unit 8
The Old Railway Goods Yard
Milnsbridge
Huddersfield
West Yorkshire 

Everyone (online) says it’s like silk. At first in the sliver (chunk of fibers) I didn’t think so at all. Silk feels completely different from anything. However, spinning it up it slipped through my fingers so silky and maybe even easier to use. 

And then the second dream is-Saxon Blue. Natural indigo leaves are processed with sulfuric acid so that the indigo just strikes on the fiber with no vat. 

The reason I’m interested is that I am obsessed with color and love the indigo plant but not the color it gives. (On me) (I like it okay in shibori and jeans and everything but it doesn’t make me stop breathing like, oh, onion skins, undyed flax, sandalwood, really dozens of things.) 

So, Saxon blue is a treated version of natural indigo that fortunately has much less red in it and gives a purer cyan type blue. 
I was able to find it at the incomparable Grandma’s Spinning Wheel, an incredibly lucky find while we were in Tucson. The shop is I would say equal to the other best fiber shop I know, Dharma’s Trading, and it focuses on spinning whereas Dharma’s focuses on dyeing. 

I was just so thrilled to have it in my hands and also to be back at the dye studio in which I live that I dyed up a sample in a glass jar just to see, just for reference. 

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