Forevermore!

Story of a long journey!  A seeminly never ending journey!

You see, I've been spinning brown cotton for years!

It all began when I planted a few brown cotton seeds

to watch them grow into lovely plants that produced a

lovely bloom, in turn to produce a boll of brown cotton.

Brown cotton is short staple, takes some practice to spin

This cotton came from Acadians who exiled from Nova Scotia and settled in

Southern Louisiana and had many hardships overcome .  Read their story here

While I was education coordinator at one of the Louisiana plantations, we planted

brown cotton for public viewing.  Of course, since I had the smooth ginned seeds,

I planted some in my home garden, year after year!

Hence, when I picked the bolls, they were saved till I had a large quantity.

Usually, I would hand card, which takes alot of time and patience.

Somehow, my friend and I stumbled upon a mill that would card our cotton for us!

That was a huge YAY!

Before, we could send to the mill, all that cotton needed to be hand ginned.

Brown cotton has smooth seeds, which pop out easily, but still takes some time.

Meanwhile, I met a group of senior citizens, who were looking to plant some cotton

in their garden--we stuck up a deal--if they hand gin my cotton, they can have the

seeds for their garden!  Worked perfectly--beneficial for them and me!

So off, the ginned cotton went to the mill

This was 2.25 lbs.

Several months later, This arrived at my door step one bright sunny day!  My brown cotton

all carded into nice long rolags!

Look at this luxious fiber!  no bumps, no debris, just nice cotton ready for

the wheel.  That story began in the 1980's and now I'm still spinning the

'aged' fiber for Tour de Fleece!

Easy to spin once you have the niche--I use a long draw method, which allows me to 

sit back in my chair, treadle away and feed the cotton into the orifice'

browns cotton, being such a short staple, needs lots of twist so set your wheel to fast

and go!  I know I make it sound easy, but after all I've been spinning cotton fiber

for onto 40 years now!

Here are the fruits of my labor during this Tour-brown cotton plus one bobbin of spun angora fiber in the background.  I spun that one bobbin of bunny fluff to satisfy myself but truly love spinning cotton better.

So, I spin on Forevermore!

Happy treadling y'all!