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Bamboo (Top)
$3.75 – $28.94
100% Viscose of Bamboo.
Very clean combed top, pearly-white in colour. Staple length is 3.5 to 4 inches.
PRODUCT of CHINA
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Northern Lights Cotton Candy
Combed 100% wool top/sliver. Space-dyed in soft lemon-yellow, sky blue, lavender and creamy orange.
PRODUCT of BELGIUM
Hemp – Natural Brown (Top)
100% Hemp.
This is beautiful stuff, the finest hemp we have ever seen and a local lady with a lot of experience spinning hemp tried it and agrees!
Very clean combed top, in a natural tan colour. Staple length is 6 to 7 inches. Hemp is a bast (stem) fibre from a very tall plant, essentially a strain of marijuana developed for fibre instead of other uses. Spun in a manner much like flax, the two also share the attribute of being harsh at first and just getting better and better over time with wear and laundering. It can be spun all by itself or blended with wool and other fibres. This has a light characteristic hemp scent but it's not overwhelming and should not be offensive to the nose during spinning.
Since this is a plant or cellulose fibre dyers must use fibre reactive dyes. Natural dyers must resort to techniques used on cotton, such as alum-tannin premordanting, or Aluminum acetate. Hemp also works well in an indigo vat.
PRODUCT of CHINA
Milk Protein (Top)
100% Milk Protein Fibre. Also known as Latte.
Extremely clean combed top in natural ivory-cream. Staple length is about 4 inches.
One of the "new" man-made fibres, with a manufacturing process very similar to soy fibre. Said to be even softer than soy, and with good lustre. We can't find much for references to describe the drape in finished garments but we are guessing it's probably excellent.
Considered a protein fibre, so acid dyes will work very nicely. Probably so will natural dyes with the usual protein-fibre premordanting methods. Somebody told us that if you take the dyebath temperatures too close to boiling, this fibre will dissolve. Urban myth? You tell us!
Silk Top, Tussah (Bleached)
100% silk.
Combed top, bleached but still an ivory-cream colour. Staple length is about 6 to 7 inches. If you plan on using your silk for blending, Tussah silk is nearly always a better value fibre than Cultivated silk.
Silk top is easy to dye, using either acid dyes, fibre reactive dyes, or natural dyes.
For spinning, silk top may be spun all by itself or used for blending with a myriad of other fibres.