My intention yesterday was to complete one of the questions for my level 3 homework... if you recall I was going to spin Bombyx silk for the warp and silk hankies for the weft. Weeeeeelllll.... I ran into a slight problem.... my silk Bombyx was not in large supply and I hated spinning the silk hankies. So, instead I spun the silk Bombyx and came up with about 65m of singles.... I decided to spin Tussah silk for the other single and quite frankly it came out much nicer than I expected! So a little bit of a lesson on silk for the non-fibre enthusiasts who read this blog and might want to learn a little something about silk fibre.
Silk as we know, is the spit of silk worms... basically a silk larvae will eat leaves (mostly mulberry) until they are ready to go through their change to a moth (chrysalis). When they are ready the moth will enclose itself in a coccon made of one continuous thread that is mostly protein and is spit from the larva's silk glands. I think I have that right.....
When silk worms have done this the cocoon is ready for humans to harvest. It is a labour intensive and finicky job. The beginning thread has to be found and then the silk is reeled onto a reel and the idea is to unreel the whole cocoon without breaking the thread. Even though silk is one of the strongest fibres in the natural world it is still a very fine fibre and can break... though considering how tiny the thread is, breakage surprisingly doesn't happen as often as you would think. However, when the thread does break the broken pieces are set aside for spinners and is processed into what a spinner calls a roving..... the rovings are hundreds of thousands of the broken threads all lined up in a parallel manner so that spinners can spin the stuff.
There is also another way to process the cocoon. The cocoons can be boiled in a solution to remove the sizing (that's the stuff that makes it stiff) and the worm and poop are removed and then the cocoon is stretched over a form and left to dry. One of the forms is a square Mawatta made from a 1' square frame that basically has pins or nails pointing up at various intervals around the edes. A cocoon that is stretched over this form is called a hankie and surprisingly looks like a silk hankie that is easily unraveled.Here's a stack of about 80 or so with one pulled off to show how transparent they are....
There are several different kinds of silk worms but there are two that I am concerned with. Bombyx silk comes from cultivated silk worms and the silk is amazingly white with an awesome sheen (this has to do with what they are fed). Tussah silk comes from wild silk worms and has this glorious champagne colour that also has a beautiful sheen. I love Tussah silk because I love the champagne colour... but I'm also learning to love Bombyx silk as well.
Ok so back to what I was saying. My plan was to spin in a worsted manner, Bombyx silk rovings for warp, so that I would have a really strong and smooth warp thread for my woven silk sample. Then I was going to spin silk hankies (which sometimes spins up a little lumpy and bumpy) for the weft, giving the woven sample some texture. For you newbies again, the warp threads are the threads that go in one direction and are the base threads for the weft. The weft are the threads that you weave under and over the warp threads. Clear as mud?
I started spinning the Bombyx and realized that I wouldn't have enough for my 10m skein and the warp if I plied it. If I wanted Bombyx then I would have to order some more and I am not the type who likes to wait.... Then I was going to give up spinning the Bombyx and just spin the Tussah which I have loads of, but the Tussah was too dark in my opinion, to go with the silk Hankies which are white like the Bombyx.... but not quite as white. So I got the idea of blending Bombyx with the Tussah..... problem... I had already spun most of my Bombyx silk so I decided to spin all of the Bombyx into a single and the spin a Tussah single and then ply the two together. This would give me a slightly less white look but at the same time it would still be lighter than the champagne colour of the Tussah. It looks really nice!
And actually looks closer to the colour of the hankie. So then I sat down and started spinning the silk hankies..... I hate silk hankies.... the threads are unbroken... and they are strong and when you try to draft the threads they cut into your hands.... I hate that!So after taking off enough of the Bombyx/Tussah yarn for a 10m skein I realized that I had lots, enough to do the whole woven sample....
and I can do a lace weave instead of a plain weave.... lace looks better with smooth threads and not lumpy bumpy stuff. So I got out my 6" x 6" pin loom and away I went. It looks really nice so far.....I should get this finished today.... and I will post pictures at that time. What I have noticed is that the textured weave of the lumpy bumpy silk hankie with the smooth warp will have to wait till I get a chance to do that with something else.... but I still will have a textured weave because the lace will give me a textured weave.
Funny how great intentions change and develop as you go along.
Have a nice day.... I'm off to weave silk!
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