It Takes Lots of Hands to make Handspun Hope Cotton

While I was in Rwanda visiting Handspun Hope, I got to see how their cotton yarn is made.

The cotton is handspun on a drop spindle by a women's cooperative in Ethiopia. The yarn is then sent to Handspun Hope in Rwanda to be skeined and naturally dyed.

The balls are measured out into skeins, so that they can be dyed.


The skeins are soaked in mordant so that the dye "sticks" to the yarn.

This single ply cotton has been naturally dyed with fresh cosmos and is ready to be hung up to dry.


Here I am (in my Handspun Hope Cotton sweater) standing in front of the single ply cotton that has been dyed with madder root.

Next the women wind the yarn back into balls, so that it can be plied. The cotton yarn has two plies, each a different color to achieve a marled effect.

The balls are then plied together.

 
The two ply yarn is then wound back into skeins for us.


I brought this batch back to our Fan Club in my suitcase.

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