Showing posts with label spinnng. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spinnng. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Dracena draco, banana fiber, and basswood or linden fiber

During my winter break from school, I started working on something new.  I was inspired by this beautiful fairy dress. I wish I knew who the artist was.  Unfortunately, nothing showed up on a google search.
I started off by preparing some dracena draco leaves by boiling them in a water and glycerin solution.  Hopefully, that will keep the orange tips from breaking off.  I twined the bodice with more dracena draco strips and banana fiber strips.

When I got near the waist, I started adding some inner basswood bark pieces vertically, to fill out the skirt, and twined with it.  It's a very messy fiber for twining, and I was getting frustrated with the slowness.  

For more info on collecting and retting basswood: http://http.wightman.ca/~mark.whitcombe/basswood_twining.html 
I pretty much followed the same method, but soaked my bark in large plastic containers for a month and longer.  The author shows how to make cordage with the basswood fiber, also.

Mari Yamaguchi Newell shows the Japanese method for making basswood/linden string, which is much more labor intensive.

 I settled for in between, since I am a beginning spinner.  I shredded the inner basswood into 1/4" wide lengths, and tied them together to make very long weavers.  In many places, you can see where I left the knots exposed.   This was much easier to work with, so I continued twining, and then went to an open weave for the lower portion.  
On the spinning wheel
Twining with basswood cordage



Now I need a title.  I'm thinking of something w/ flame and dress.  Any suggestions?