Hita's Whimsy: Bitten by the COTTON BUG!

I shared my blog with a friend, explaining why I haven't been quilting much lately was because I've gotten obsessed with cotton. After reading my previous updates her reply was, "You've been bitten by the COTTON BUG for sure!"

I can't help chuckle out loud because there is an actual cotton bug!!! It's a boll weevil...

Photo from The Weevil Times, Boll Weevil song

This creature can cause quite a bit of trouble for a cotton farmer. It's a beetle that feeds on cotton buds and flowers. Around the 1920s the boll weevil had infested all southern cotton farms. Efforts were made to eradicate the bug but it's still quite pesky today. You can read more from Wikipedia on Boll Weevils.

On our most recent trip to visit my MIL in Florida, I would periodically check Google to see what interesting facts I could find out about the area we were driving through. (Truth be told, I was looking for yarn shops. Particularly, yarn shops that carry spinning supplies. 🤗)

When we were near Ozark, AL, Google informed me that we were close to a historical monument.... the only monument to ever be erected in honor of a pesky insect, the Boll Weevil!!!

Photo from atlasobscura.com

Monument in Enterprise, AL dedicated to the boll weevil. The story is quite interesting! It seems around 1915, the boll weevils were so bad that the farmers around Enterprise, AL were inspired to grow peanut crops instead of cotton. The effort paid off. The town prospered and by 1917, Coffee County (Enterprise's county) was the leading producer of peanuts in the entire country.

But the monument was 20 minutes off our route so we didn't go see it in person. I suppose it's not really that far off route, but when traveling 9 hrs with 3 others and a dog, adding another 40 minutes driving is a lot. Besides, I had to save my stopping requests for yarn shops!!

And so my Cotton Education Adventure continues 😄....

Now I feel I've almost come full circle. What brought about this adventure was a desire to try my hand at spinning cotton. In the first post, Cotton Education Adventure: the fields (part 1), I introduced my friend, Karen Arzemendi, who has been on this adventure with me. She was already sending texts YouTube links to me on how to spin cotton just minutes after leaving the fields with our bags of cotton. It's pretty awesome to have a friend that is exactly my kind of crazy 😆.

I was determined to keep focused on Beholder's Beauty because the deadline was approaching quickly. But during breaks from quilting I looked for my spinning supplies to display on our cotton table at the MQA Fall Gathering. To my dismay, my supplies seemed to been temporarily "put away" into storage when we moved into this house.... (Translates to I have no idea which box they are in. It's going to take more time than I have right now to find it.)

Being unable to locate my spindles was really a blessing in disguise. I searched the web and found The Woolery. I looked through all the spindles, I counted 25+ brands, each with several sizes. I was sure I had found the perfect one for cotton... The company called me a few days later to let me know the item was on back order. I explained what I wanted in hopes they could substitute with something just as appropriate. Good thing I had to talk with them, I had the wrong type of spindle anyway!!
My order arrived just a few days later... a cotton seed flicker for preparing the cotton so I can spin it straight off the seed. And a Tahkli low whorl spindle. I was surprised how tiny it felt in my hands.
November 7...

Of course I had to try it out immediately....

One seed yielded just over a yard of fine single-ply thread for me.

Eight seeds... Very slow going. Definitely not like spinning wool fibers. I struggled with breakage due to not enough twist and struggled on the flip side with too much twist. Only time and practice is going make this easier.

I really like being able to spin right off the seed. The seed flicker is very easy to use and is perfect for loosening the fibers. The down side is that I can only prepare a few at a time. The cotton clings to itself, making stacking prepared seeds tangle too much.

Seventy-three seeds later.... Nov 9

... made an approx 17 yard 3ply skein. I haven't determined what size the yarn is yet. It's slightly thicker than crochet cotton, possibly lace weight..