Knitting Dragonflies

As you know I have been raising silkworms, or trying to. It started with the idea of raising them for their cocoons, and eggs and then dyeing them to spin. Along the way I became charmed by these little hairy babies. Lifting their heads up,every time I opened the container to feed or check on them. Little piggy fellows, peaceful and sweet. My tale is one of many mishaps. I was so excited when my 1000 little eggs hatched, right on schedule. I had my mulberry leaf supply and fed them, hungry little squiggles. I checked and fed them , removed old leaves and then……one evening a cold snap came, I didn’t have the heat light set up. In the morning I had 1000 dead silkworms. Damn.. Discouraged but determined I set out with 500 more eggs. I had a thermometer in the shoe box, and a heat lamp. The eggs hatched out in 3 days. But by this time the mulberry leaves are browning, so I bought the mulberry mush. I carefully cut and place little clumps around for the little cuties to eat. They qui...

If you have the new Spin Off mag , you have probably read the fantastic article by Michael Cook about Growing your own silk , and his in depth website Wormspit. Well, I fell in love with the little wiggly spinners. A relatively new spinner, and I have only spin with a silk hankie ( or matwatas) once. But I knew I had to have some of the voracious little guys.   I’m planning on letting them all live out their natural life span, all of the info I have found indicate that if you desire the silk for thread, the worm must be killed while in the cocoon (the cocoon is one long filament), but if using to spin, it is not necessary to do that. More info at Peace silk Here are my eggs My husband had asked me “is there anything you would like me to get you for your birthday?”. And so  as I set out on an adventure, come with me on my wormy quest for silk. I hope to be able to make some silk hankies and dye them . I found a nice tutorial on how to dye them by Constance Ros...