Knitting Dragonflies

Right on schedule on little eggs started hatching… Sept 29th These little guys are called “Kego” in Japan, and translates to “hairy baby”. See detailed info on the website WormSpit . I am feeding the Mulberry leaves although it is starting to cool down here in Southern Indiana. I have bought the dehydrated “silkworm chow” yummy, in case we need it. I have gotten different opinions on this from “you can’t change from leaves to chow, but can change from chow to leaves” begin the predominant opinion. I talked to one guy who said his ate either, as long as they had food. I bought the “Zebra silkworms” which said they were stronger, and more disease resistant. This sounded like a quality I would look for in a tomato plant, so I thought I would be a good idea. Hopefully I will not kill as many worms as I did fish when I started with aquariums. Oct 2, blast of cold air last night, I didn’t know that the #1 cause of silkworm death is temperature. OK so I had 1000 eggs. I didn’t...

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...