Tien Chiu

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You are here: Home / All blog posts / It's here! It's here! It's here!!!
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January 6, 2009 by Tien Chiu

It's here! It's here! It's here!!!

After being tied up in Customs for an entire week, my package of hand-reeled silk from Laos has arrived!  It’s a big box full of 1-3 oz skeins:

A big box full of hand-reeled silk from Laos
A big box full of hand-reeled silk from Laos

As you can see, it’s a pretty big box, and it’s PACKED with yarn.  11 lbs of it, to be precise.  “Almost enough to swim in it!” said Mike, upon seeing it.

The yarn is quite irregular, with some large slubs, and is very loosely twisted.  Here’s what a loose skein looks like:

Skein of hand-reeled silk yarn from Laos
Skein of hand-reeled silk yarn from Laos

In weight it varies between 30/2 and 60/2 silk.  Here’s a photo that gives a rough idea:

skein-in-hand

This is actually the coarse end of the scale, and the looseness makes it look bigger than it actually is.

There is definite variation in the skeins – some are more like 60/2 silk, some are more like 30/2.  I suspect that’s because they were made by different people – this is all hand-reeled and twisted by hand using these tools:

dreamy-reeling

twisting

(I lifted these images from the organization’s website – please do check them out, at http://www.mulberries.org – they have glorious photos of the entire silk-rearing and silk-reeling process.)

All the skeins are beautifully lustrous, with occasional slubs of noil.

What to do with them?  After I finish the cashmere coat, I  plan to warp up with a sample and see whether it’s suitable for warp (because it’s very loosely twisted, it may not be) and if so, dye a little bit and weave up some samples!  It will be lovely to see what it’s like, woven up…

My dream for this silk is to weave a wedding dress from it, if and when Mike and I get to that  point.  It would make an absolutely gorgeous wedding dress!  (Heck, I might even weave it up for someone else’s wedding…I just want to make the dress!)

I am so, so pleased that this has arrived – I have been searching for more of this yarn ever since I returned from Laos, six years ago.

Yay!!!

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Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, weaving

Previous post: Another knitted blank sample
Next post: La Maison du Chocolat

Comments

  1. Bonnie says

    January 6, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    A beautiful and inspiring post! This is off topic, but I just saw this and thought of you
    http://www.nationaltrufflefest.com/art.html

  2. Laura says

    January 6, 2009 at 2:49 pm

    You can always get some 2/60 silk suitable for warp and use the hand reeled yarn for the weft. 🙂

    Cheers,

    Laura

  3. RuTemple says

    January 6, 2009 at 11:20 pm

    Gorgeous stuff, Tien; that’s going to be fun to experiment with!

  4. Lisa J says

    January 7, 2009 at 6:25 pm

    Would a wedding-themed tutu be an option for the next Lifecycle?

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