Eugene Textile Center
Monthly Newsletter
October, 2021
Upcoming Classes & Workshops
Keep your eyes open for Dead Man's Foot
Rain is on its way! Take a look under local oak trees for this funky looking mushroom called Dead Man's Foot (Pisolithus arhizus). It dyes a luxurious golden brown! If you find one and you're not ready to use it, stick it in your freezer (and LABEL IT!!) for later.
We'll be experimenting with it for NEXT month's newsletter, so if you've got one, you can play along.
New Products
Journeys in Natural Dyeing
An international study of natural dyeing aimed at teaching beautiful techniques
Journeys in Natural Dyeing shares the story of Kristine Vejar and Adrienne Rodriguez’s travels to four countries—Iceland, Mexico, Japan, and Indonesia—where they visited natural dyers who use locally-sourced dyes to create textiles that evoke beauty, a connection to their environment, and showcase their mastery of skill. This book shares their process of using their own locally-grown dyes and includes recipes and projects to create more than 400 shades of color.
Pick Glass / Linen Tester
Pick glasses are designed for counting picks (or ends) per inch in woven fabric. These pick glasses have an inch square base with marks, and powerful magnification. They fold up and come with a nice little velcro case.

They are also useful for inspecting fibers, counting knitting stitches, or for anything else where you need to get a good look at something.

Order on our website, or look for them in the front display case at the store.
2021 Handmade Holiday Bazaar
It's that time of year! Mark your calendars and gather together your extra creations - We're getting ready for this year's
Homemade Holiday Bazaar!

You can read all of the important details on our website, but the short of it is:
  • You can sell any item that was hand made by you and is at least a little fiber-arts related
  • Drop off starts on Nov 10 at the store
  • 15 items max please!
  • Everything needs to be tagged and checked in - you can download all of the needed documentation on our website
  • We charge a 20% commission for all sales

We look forward to seeing this year's amazing scarves, hats, towels, yarn, baskets, felted creatures, blankets, rugs, socks, books, ...

How to Identify Fiber Content
Everyone has run into that mystery yarn where the label is missing (or wrong!) and no one knows quite what it is actually made of. We get asked to identify yarn all the time, so we'd like to pass along some of our techniques for sleuthing fiber content.
The Quick and Dirty Burn Test
Okay, I'll be honest, I love lighting yarn on fire, so this is my favorite testing method. There are three major categories of fiber: protein, cellulose, and synthetic. Each of these broad categories has a distinct smell and residue so that you can at least determine the basic category of your mystery yarn.
WARNING!
Please be careful if you light anything on fire! Keep a glass of water nearby and don't burn near anything else that is flammable. The smoke from some fibers can be quite unpleasant or might even be toxic, so keep the area well ventilated.
Protein / Animal Fibers
When you light protein fibers on fire, they tend to extinguish after you remove the flame and they smell a lot like burning hair or feathers. They create a crunchy bead of reside that easily crumbles into a coarse ash.

Some examples of protein fibers: wool, mohair, silk, and soy

A key indicator: the remains of vegetation in a wool yarn
Cellulose / Plant Fibers
Cotton and other plant fibers burn quickly and brightly, but they don't leave behind very much ash. It smells a lot like paper burning in a campfire. These fibers can keep burning after you remove the flame, so be careful!

Some examples of cellulose fibers: cotton, linen, hemp, raime, rayons (tencel, bamboo, modal, lyocell), and other plant materials
Synthetic / Plastic Fibers
Any fiber made with plastic will have a chemical smell when it burns and leave behind a sticky, hard, or other melted plastic kind of residue when burned.

Some examples of synthetic plastic-based fibers: acrylic, polyester, nylon, acetate, spandex, orlon/orlec, olefin, and many more
Getting to the Details
Often, the burn test is all that is needed to determine the basic type of fiber you are dealing with but sometimes you need more information (what KIND of cellulose is it?), or the results are confusing and you need to come at the problem from another direction.
Fiber Blends
The trickiest yarns to identify are fiber blends. Yarn manufacturers LOVE to mix everything together, making a simple test difficult because you will get multiple results. One common mixture is added nylon in wool for sock yarn or a polyester core on art yarn - just because you get a small hard bead doesn't mean that the entire yarn is made of a synthetic fiber.
Dissolve it!
One way to tease out the composition of a blended fiber is to try dissolving it. Unravel a short length of yarn, place in a glass jar with your chemical of choice (vinegar for acid, bleach for alkaline is nice and easy). Leave for a day or two and see what's left over.

Alkaline (lye or bleach): dissolves protein fibers
hydrochloric acid | HCl: dissolves silk, but not wool (use cation!!!)
Acids (diluted!): dissolve cellulose fibers

By looking to see what remains in your jar after a day or two, you'll have a better idea of what the yarn is composed of.
Fiber Length & Type
Looking at a fiber's length, luster, or general composition can help determine between yarns in the same category (like cotton vs linen). I like to use a little USB microscope or a pick glass.

Unravel a piece of yarn and tease some of the fibers out to see how long they are. Make sure you are not fooled by a cut end - I usually unravel a few inches so that I can get a good idea of the true length. Linen, hemp, and raime are long and strong fibers that are straighter than cotton. Cotton is shorter and MUCH more tender (this is also what makes it soft).

Wools tend to have some amount of crimp or frizz to them where hairs like mohair are smooth (but can be curly, which is different than crimpy)

Silks can be hard to identify simply from fiber length or shine because they have a lot of variation. The quintessential silk is long, straight and lustrous - however, silk noils, wild silks, gummed silk, etc all have characteristics that don't go along with this. Silk will often have a special feel and crunching sound when you squeeze it.
Yards per Pound, or Weight
One final clue is the weight of the fiber. Every type of fiber weighs differently. Linen is heavier than cotton, alpaca is heavier than wool, and silk is lighter than rayon. If you can figure out the yarn's yards per pound (use a yarn balance), you can compare it to a similarly sized yarn of a known type.

Have fun testing all the mystery yarn in your stash!
Sincerely,
Suzie, Staff and Buddy (the shop puppy)
Eugene Textile Center
2750 Roosevelt Blvd, Eugene, Oregon
541-688-1565