The photograph opposite is Ramie which spun up very well apart from flying all over me and the room I was spinning it in. Also on the downside it is rather stringy. I just hope it knits up to look reasonable as I want to knit a scarf for my daughter as she is allergic to wool.
I did a search for Ramie on the Internet and found it belongs to the nettle family and grows in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world and interestingly is grown for both fibre and fodder.
I dyed the Ramie with Procion MX dyes which is different than dyeing wool in two respects firstly the yarn was soaked before dyeing with soda ash and salt added to the water and secondly after adding the dye in the same way as I would do for wool I just covered it with kitchen foil and left it until the next day before rinsing. I think perhaps the rinsing could be a third difference as it took ages to rinse whereas I have found that when dyeing wool there is no or hardly any bleeding. As you can see the colours are really vibrant.
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