Things that are so cool about dogbane (citations needed, grain of salt): it is indigenous to North America. Indigenous Americans have used it for millennia to make all sorts of stuff- cordage, nets for hunting, shoes, baskets, etc. It (allegedly) does not need to be retted (!!!) just dried. Dogbane fibers have a smaller diameter than other line fibers like flax meaning fabric made from dogbane might be nice n soft.

All of this to say: I bought some dogbane fiber. Now you may be saying "Avery what are you doing?? You don't know how to spin! You don't have any spinning equipment" and I say to you "yeah oops"

But look how pretty it is!!

I have been using a splicing technique I learned from a video by Donna Cossette (Paiute) for the Nevada arts council to make cordage just with my hands and a bit of spit.

I made just about twelve feet of spliced cord. My hand cramped so badly. Either I am doing this wrong, or this is not a bulk technique.

Also, since it's toxic, I did it outside and my cat was yelling at me the whole time.

Going upriver and wow it was gorgeous. Water was so still in places, and there was not a single person out but us.

First batch was cut at our lunch spot. Nice thing is they are already dried, so they are so light to carry. The gators over the shoes are crucial, as the cheatgrass is everywhere.

A neat hole in a melon gravel boulder

More collecting. You can see how we have clipped off the branches to make it easier to transport.

Bundle of dogbane on my back. Please nerdily note my earrings, which are a length of milkweed cordage, double rolled.

Most of the dogbane will be kept at work, where we will use it for creating "arti-fakes" aka replicas, and for fiber production/cordage demonstrations.

Different stages of dogbane processing. Experimenting how best to clean and separate the fibers without losing a bunch and breaking down all the long lengths. I haven't carded the most recent batch, but 1. Scraping off outer bark before splitting the fibers from the pith and 2. Cleaning them with a comb instead of going straight to cards seems to be helping. Although a big part tbh was just splitting the stalks cleanly with a knife instead of breaking apart by hand.

Insane how soft they are when carded well though--hard to find specific resources (there's some youtube on a lot of these bits but not as much for washing/post spinning processing) but wondering if it'll need boiled and beat the way flax does (from what I can tell nettle too).