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… and this is how it did.
I haven’t ever posted any of the memes, quizzes, etc., in my journal. But this one has brought out so many interesting facts about my friends list folks, and has given me a lot of food for thought… ten things:
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.
cut, because not everybody wants to see six pictures of thread.
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 here
I’ve been reeling, throwing, dyeing, and weaving – the result:
click for more images, and descriptions
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 silk winder!!
If you get out to the State Fair, and want to check out my cool premium-winning entries in Creative Arts – the skeins are in Case #40, and the ribbon is in Case #28. They’re both on the back wall – #40 is just to the right of the butter sculpture, #28 is about halfway down that same wall.
The only thing I wish they hadn’t done in displaying them, is they folded the ribbon with a big pleat in the center – obscuring most of the brocade of the silkmoth (and worm, and cocoon) that makes the ribbon make sense.
But hey – the important part is easily visible – the big blue ribbon with the rosette on top!
