Sun 17 Apr 2011
My building on campus is right next to a marshy area that is just full of cattails. Every time I see them, I wonder if you could spin the seed fluff to make yarn. So, the other day, I ignored the puzzled looks of the local joggers and picked a stalk to find out.
Many of the seeds have already flown, so it’s a bit ratty looking, but it was enough to play with. From the stalk, I collected a handful of downy fluff:
I don’t know much about spinning plant fibers, but I could tell right away that those were some tiny fibers. They’re about half an inch long (I think cotton is about an inch?).
I decided to try anyway, since I had the fluff and I have the spinning tools. I started out on the wheel, and quickly realized that there was way too much takeup, even on the lightest setting. So I switched to a spindle.
There, I had a bit more success. I got twist into the fiber, but it couldn’t hold enough to keep the fibers together without snapping. I’d manage to get along for an inch or so, and then it would snap off again because of too much twist, or the yarn would fall apart from not enough. Perhaps it’s just tricky (I hear tell that cotton is no easy thing for a wool spinner to spin), but for now I don’t think I’ll be going into production of cattail yarn.
The reeds, though, still seem promising. I think you could probably rett them like linen and spin that…
Interesting! Maybe carding it into some other fiber?
Always the interesting experiments going on in your corner of the world! I wonder what the characteristic of a cattail yarn would be…
I love it! I spun cotton at SOAR and you need a very lightweight spindle (mine is a tiny dowel and a mini-cd) that goes very fast.
What a great idea!! I bet if you used a supported spindle (like a takhli) you’d have better luck – that’s how I finally learned how to spin cotton (which can be that short).
I’ve been tempted to try retting tule myself – let me know how your cattail experiments go 🙂
Oh, no, my house is already full of fiber! If you figure out how to spin cattail fiber, next thing will be dandelion fluff. And then I’ll have to keep Wilson from mowing the yarn before I shear it. Please stop before you get us all in trouble!
Just stumbled on this site by accident and had a good chuckle from comment #5. 🙂 Anyway, I found a book exerpt that talks about using different plant fibers. (In case any of you are interested.) Link here: http://books.google.com/books?id=qhGhrdFmdFcC&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=can+you+make+yarn+from+cattails&source=bl&ots=BpiOWMdmn9&sig=5ynz8reQjPHOwWHHb14Ya3eQlak&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0SODUa2IK4fa8wTBgoHwBQ&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=can%20you%20make%20yarn%20from%20cattails&f=false
Thanks for this post. My daughter had the same question you had and we googled it and came upon your experiment. Now we know that it probably wouldn’t have worked
Fibers this short are probably going to shed like crazy, and produce a fuzzy yarn. Probably better mixed with something like cotton and used as a novelty or accent yarn. You could try using something like silk thread to wrap around the cattail fibers like a boucle. Good luck with your experiments. Don’t bother retting the stalks. Not enough fiber in them to produce anything useful. Using the leaves is coiled baskets however….