Teasel

While all SCA folks are preparing or arriving for Pennsic, I am on a weed walk local outside of town, living in manicured suburbs has its draw backs. Collected a car trunk load of Teasel to run a small spinning fiber experiment. Since sunflower stalks can be made into spinning fiber, there maybe more semi-woody plants that one can make spinning fibers.

This is true of hessian cloth (burlap) and sack cloth from plant fibers. There are a whole list of cloth fibers from plants most notably linen from flax. Although nettle hemp and jute lost popularity except in certain uses after the production of cotton became popular post period.

Teasel are in the thistle family so they are spiked all over and will need to be scraped of thorns and leaves. My goal to see if it can be retted and made into usable fiber, besides the spikes dried seed pods having use as a natural comb when dry. Which I am saving those to dry and store in a clear latch jar for later use.

Found loads along my local highway but it’s dangerous to harvest along a major freeway. This is just off a public sidewalk. Always ask permission from any property owner before harvesting even unwanted plants.

The Teasel now are green and in full bloom. I am hoping the result would be a  grayish brown color of this which is similar to flax, the teasel fiber will be a similar color if all works out. Running this experiment now in a small batch scale-to see if by fall it’s worth obtaining more. The challenge is making sure the waxes and other gum like parts of the plant break down. Seems that a large amount of the plant is needed to harvest a good amount of fibers in most cases.  Here is to the Science part of the Sca Arts and Sciences.

It’s science,

THL Marrin O’Cadhla