The Arbidar Company based in Montana sells natural fibre kits that
include a couple of colours of Alpaca, various silks, and several
leaf/paper fibres.  They also sell numerous kinds of fur fibres.  See
their website and click on the "natural fibres" link for a list:

http://arbidar.montana.com/

Irene Karsten
Conservator
Clothing and Textiles Collection
Department of Human Ecology
302 Human Ecology Building
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada  T6G 2N1
(780) 492-7678




---- Begin Original Message ----

From: Jennifer Barnett <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 10:37:26 +0200
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: natural fibre samples


Spring greetings!

I give workshops in fibre identification and am collecting visual aids
and teaching materials to enhance the experience. In particular, I am
looking for raw fibre and/or yarn samples of the following:
- leaf fibres
- Peruvian cotton of various natural colours
- Alpaca hair of various natural colours
- wild silk (or semi-cultivated: not Bombyx Mori) fibre of fabric from
Africa, China and Japan. Cocoons would be great.

Likely sources are probably fibre craft suppliers, speciality fibre
promotion institutes or friendly manufacturers.
Hopefully this request to the international community of textile
specialists will result in more direct hits than Google.
If you have any ideas for me, please let me know.


Jennifer Barnett
regina textilia: historical textiles research & consultation
Oude Looiersstraat 65-67
1016 VH Amsterdam
Netherlands
tel/fax ** 31 (0)20 427 18 27
[log in to unmask]


---- End Original Message ----



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