Thoughts on other fibers
I have been thinking a lot about how to work with wool in other ways to expand its use areas. I started by considering supporting wool with other materials, such as clay, UV-responsive resins, and wax. But quickly realized these little experiments didn't satisfy me and that I wanted to protect the fiber-ness of wool and its organic features.
Before starting this project, I explored a few kinds of other fibers:
"Fibers that can be derived or originated from natural renewable resources are called natural fibers. There are bio-based fibers of plant or animal origin. Plant fibers are cellulosic and animal fibers are protein-based fibers."
From the book Fundamentals of Natural Fibers and Textiles edited by. Ibrahim H. Mondal
These initial tests led to collecting several other natural fibers throughout the project to pair with wool. These fibers are introduced in Chapter 3 - material experiments.
Tests on wool + pine fibers
Felted the mix, happened very quickly.
Although I used more wool than pine fibers, in the end, pine fibers dominated the appearance and the texture.
Tests with corn husk and corn silk
I picked these up when I had a sudden realization while cooking corn. Once you start looking for fibers, you can see them everywhere. Later, I learned that making sustainable textiles with cornhusk fibers has been going on for a while.
Calusa way of using palm fibers
Fishing net fragments excavated in Calusa villages, care and maintenance instructions, and tools employed to make the nets.
Images are taken at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainsville, 2023.
From textilelearner.net
The pine and coconut fibers were very welcoming to test how they work. As their fiber structure is prominent, starting the tests with them was very straightforward. Indeed, the Calusa people, the native Americans of southwest Florida before their disappearance after the contact by the European settlers, have already been using these fibers to make yarns for making nets for fishing.
Tests with coconut fibers
Collected from two coconuts. Both had been beaten by the sun and were already showing their fibers.
I ripped the fibers underwater.
