Free on the Side of the Road

I have a big basket filled with raw cotton I picked close to Winfield after harvest and decided to work it up.  It's kind of a tedious process but those are the ones I tend to like the most.  I also gave a demonstration over the weekend at an artist's gathering.  Here are the steps (which don't include a crazy white girl out in a field pilfering free cotton):

1) Pull the fiber out of the pods and then pick out all the seeds and debris
2) Hand card (flat brushes that line the fiber up) and roll like cinnamon buns ready to be spun
3) Spin two spools with a somewhat heavy twist
4) Counter clockwise spin the two spools into one yarn
5) Soak to clean, give it some good whacks against the bathtub then hang outside to dry

And that's it.  Ready to knit up into something useful like cotton washcloths.  Pretty cool to make something from nature into something useful.