Farmer's Market Project #2

I had to skip the Farmer's Market last week, since I was IN my best friend's wedding, but the week before that I actually went to 2 local farmer's markets. The new Jonesborough market is still small, but all of the produce (of which there was very little by 10:30 am) was local. My favorite local chocolatier was there (Earth and Sky Creations)- and we bought a chocolate for each of us. On the car ride home they both got melty and so we were at a rush when we stopped by the JC market. So rushed, in fact, that I left my camera in the car and it wasn't until the last minute that I grabbed it and shot the brightest thing I found:

While I was out of town for the wedding, I thought about these flowers, so bright amongst the green leaves. I decide to finally break out the banana fiber I've been too nervous to spin and I dyed it a few shades of green. I found some brilliant impatient-orange recycled silk that are the perfect shade of orange. The banana fiber and recycled silk are recycled in the same way: a Nepalese woman's co-op collects the scraps from sari weaving; apparently banana fiber is a very common fiber in India! While the silk is smooth, with all the fibers parallel, the banana fiber is very crimpy and clustered up, tied together is some places. Making it spinable is a time-consuming task and involves "fluffing" it, pulling apart the fibers, cutting or untying the knots, getting it as parallel as possible (I tried handcarding to no avail!). Because the banana fiber is so uneven and I wanted to ensure a sturdy yarn, I chose to use a commercially spun 100% hemp yarn as the base and spun the banana and silk around the hemp yarn (like corespinning).Impatient Orange - available in the shop

The resulting yarn is fluffy and soft and scrappy, while extremely sturdy and strong.

and funky!

PS. The chocolate got melty, but we popped it in the fridge when we got home (just a few minutes) and it ended up tasting SO amazing - PB for Jay, Chili Powder for me.