I’m not sure what will make the best food-safe-for-bugs dye, but I’m thinking I’ll experiment with some commercial acid dyes – small batches so I’ll know what works for color, and what the worms can stand. Dyed food makes colored cocoons
Well, the answer is: the synthetic spider silk does take dye. It takes dye very well, pretty much identically to how the bombyx does. It has a slightly more tan shade, but not as dark as tussah silk.
One of my silk friends in England sent me some spidrex artificial spider silk. She’s been working with it, seeing how it behaves in various textile applications. Of course, my first instinct was to see how it would degum…
Organzine is a twisted and plied filament silk. This is about a 40denier strand, that has been plied up four strands to the single, and then doubled with another four-strand single. That makes it a 40d4x2 organzine.
This is short video clip of a silkworm eating, courtesy of Yahoo’s new Video Search feature. The pattering in the background is what a room full of silkworms sounds like – it’s like a soft rain.
I’m working on some blue dyed reeled silk for a trade project. This is part of the results:
The ribbon is finished! Photos and info
I’ve been reeling, throwing, dyeing, and weaving – the result:
I got a chance the past couple of weekends to do some SERIOUS silk-reeling. Whipping through cocoons by the dozens and eventually hundreds, and making skeins that I can actually visualize making an entire project with, rather than using for tiny detail embellishment!
I got a special package in the mail from Bill Wyatt of Wyatt Wheels. Inside this amazingly sturdy (wood-reinforced!) cardboard box, was the prototype