For at least 15 years I have been participated in the Youth Science Institute's Insect Fair, sitting alongside the busy caterpillars while they do the initial spinning. Every year children and their parents puzzle over the hard cocoon I hand them and become wide-eyed over the prospect that such a cocoon can relatively easily be transformed into cloth. I often got a question that stopped me. “What are you going to do with it?” For some years the answer was, “I’m not sure”. It then changed to the more honest, “I don’t know.” And next, “I only spin silk at the Insect Fair.” But I finally decided to take the plunge.
After looking through books and magazines and mulling it over for two days, I decided on a scarf with stripes of handspun tussah. I would keep it simple and do a plain weave. Should I ply it so I wouldn’t have too many broken ends? I decided to leave it as singles. For all these years I had shown kids how strong it was. How would I know if I did not try it? Besides I had plenty of yarn.
It took me almost all day to wind a 3-yard warp of 172 ends. It was definitely sticky with lots of miniscule fuzzies. And there were the times I could not find the end on the bobbin. But I persevered with a nagging notion that I was creating a project from nether world.
After looking through books and magazines and mulling it over for two days, I decided on a scarf with stripes of tussah. I would keep it simple and do a plain weave. Should I ply it so I wouldn’t have too many broken ends? Throwing caution to the winds, I decided to leave it as singles. For all these years I had shown kids how strong it was. How would I know if I did not try it? Besides I had plenty of yarn.
It took me almost all day to wind a 3-yard warp of 172 ends. It was definitely sticky with lots of miniscule fuzzies. And there were the times I could not find the end on the bobbin. But I persevered.
It took another half day to wind the warp onto the beam. Surprisingly there was very little breakage. Another half day and I had the heddles and reed threaded and was ready to weave. Just as I suspected, there were a lot of the threads that stuck together. I methodically put my hand in the shed behind the beater and separated the upper layer of threads from the lower one. This was not as hard as I had expected! I threw the shuttle, beat lightly, and raised the opposite threads and beat lightly again. There still were a few threads that stuck together but not as many as I had anticipated. And so it went.
From time to time there would be a short area where I could not get a clean shed, but it was not difficult to reach back and separate threads. A few warp ends drifted apart where they had not been given enough twist, but these were easily fixed. The pale stripes of tussah pleased me; the sometimes thick, sometimes thin, lumpy yarn seemed to add a rich dimension I had not expected; and my repeated mantra to the kids about how strong silk was turned out to be a reality. The sett I had come up with of 24 epi in the warp created a balanced weave if I used a gentle beat.
I wove as far as I could. I washed it and figured out how to finish the cut ends. A quick press and I was ready for a fringe. I wanted one that would look elegant yet simple. After much browsing, I finally settled for alternating, interlaced overhand knots as shown in Finishes in the Ethnic Tradition by Suzanne Baizerman and Karen Searle and let 6-inches of fringe hang beneath the final knot. The result is an elegant scarf of ample length that I can wrap twice around and still show off the lovely fringe. I am currently still spinning alongside the silkworms every year while trying to envision what will come next.
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