Guest Author - Llyn Payne
Spinning cotton directly from the cotton seed is easy and fun. While ginned cotton must be carded to organize the fibers for spinning, the fibers are already organized on the seed and very little preparation is needed.
Cotton on the seed comes either as whole bolls or as a disorganized mass and may contain quite a bit of the plant material along with the fibers. On bolls, the seeds are completely surrounded by fibers and may be hard to see but they are easy to feel as they feel like small hard lumps in the fibers. It’s quite easy to separate each seed – simply grasp the seed and pull it from the boll. If the fiber is a disorganized mass, just feel for the seeds and separate them from the mass of fibers. This is slightly harder to do as there may be more plant matter that needs to be picked out and fibers from each seed tend to stick together. Do not remove the seed from the fiber.
Cotton seeds have a teardrop type of shape. The top part of the seed is pointed and may be quite sharp so handle then seeds with some caution. Grasp the seed by its rounded bottom section and gently fan the fibers out around the seed. That’s it – your cotton seeds are ready for spinning!
Spinning directly from the seed works best on a bobbin & flyer wheel. A degree of tension is necessary for the fibers to be pulled from the seed and I’ve found that a two handed drafting method works best as the forward hand provides the amount of tension needed.
Cotton is quite a short stapled fiber so it needs a high degree of twist to hold the yarn together. Use your highest ratio whorl, set the tension on your wheel as lightly as possible, and treadle slowly. The leader should have a bit of a frayed end so the fibers will attach well at the start.
Hold the seed by the rounded bottom end and make the join to the leader by overlapping the frayed end of the leader with a few of the cotton fibers. Draft with either a short backwards draw or a supported point of contact long draw. If you use the supported long draw, you may need to add more twist to each make before allowing the yarn to wind onto the bobbin.
Carefully work around the entire seed. As the fibers come off of the seed, you will see a fuzzy undercoat covering the seed – these are called “fuzz hairs” and they have a larger diameter than the good cotton lint that’s been feeding off the seed to this point. You’re finished with a seed when all that’s left on it is the fuzz hair. Leave a bit of unspun lint at the end of your yarn when you’re finished with one seed and you’ll be ready to start the next seed.
