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Michael,
>. the websites I looked at referred to "throwing" it, which sounds like
>a spinning process - can I do this with a spinning wheel? Or a drop spindle?
It seems that in medieval London, silk was bought and then 'thrown' (or
occasionally bought ready to use, including having been dyed). From what I
can gather, throwing silk is simply a form of spinning/twisting to ensure a
more manageable size of thread. Some was only very loosely plied
(references in the MoL textiles book) whereas others have a definite twist
and having played around with reeled silk which I have bought, a drop
spindle would work fine (although I can't say I'm a good spinner!), and I'm
sure that a spinning wheel would make the job a bit easier for you!
>Another question (and yes, I'm sending this to Ron's fiber pages as well...)
>anyone have a suggestion for a good brand of dye for silk, and a source for
>it? I understand it takes differently than some of the other fibers, but
>don't know that much about it...
Natural dyes! The silk has to be really well washed. Again, I'm not an
expert dyer, but have had enough pale colours on silk to learn from them
finally! And the biggest thing has to be that the silk must be very well
washed. My best dyeing sessions have come from flaking a 'pure' soap (the
ones you can buy that have no perfumes, etc) and simmering the silk for a
while in the dissolved soap. The silk should stop feeling slimy - then its
clean. And of course, rinse out the soap really well. Then, mordant the
silk - using more mordant than you would with wool, and for longer. (I have
tried wool methods of including the mordant in the dyepan with the
dyestuff, but the results weren't as nice) - some books recommend that silk
is left in the mordant for 8 or more hours. Since I started leaving it
overnight, I got better results.
A really lovely golden yellow can be obtained from onion skins - so you
don't need a specialist supplier for those. But, its not usually a very
fast colour, if the piece is going to be washed again. (And put a bit of
iron into the dyebath and you get a lovely moss green colour...) You also
need alot of onion skins.
I don't know of natural dye suppliers in the States, but Fibrecrafts in the
UK does quite a large selection, and I'm pretty sure they do international
orders, So far, I've found that quality of their dyestuff is really good.
Dyeing silk does give lovely colours - even the pale colours that you get
when you haven't quite done it correctly have a lovely tone.
Might even be worth buying some white silk and having a practice before you
really have a go with your hard worked and waited for silk!
So pleased to hear that it worked for you!
Gina
Gina Barrett
Leicestershire, England
Send private reply to Gina Barrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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