spin knit win preview
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hink the tahkli is
just for spinning
cotton? Thinkagain.
The tahkli is aspindle designed
for making ultra-fine, high
twist yarns. It is small andlightweight with a slender
steel shaft. This is a spindlemade for spinning finelace-weight yarns.
And when it comes to
horseraces—the sheerspeed at producing fine,high-twist hand-spun
yarn—a tahkli in skillfulhands can out-perform99.9% of treadled wheels,
hands down.Sound interesting?
Photos by Joe Coca.
Spinning Yarn with a TahkliStephenie Gaustad
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Using the TahkliThe tahkli is a supported
spindle; it isn’t dropped,
dangling from the yarn it hasmade. Instead, it rests in a
shallow bowl or dish while thespinner constantly flicks thespindle shaft with one hand,
imparting the twist.Unless you possess a certain
mindset, you won’t choosethis tool to spin pounds andpounds of yarn. But it ishighly efficient, and when
your fingers understand themanipulation, it can be at oncesatisfying and utterly habit
forming. It also helps that thistiny spindle fits in most pencilboxes or make-up bags. It’s a
snap to pack along.
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long with tea and
umbrellas, silk isone of China’s mostfamous exports.
Most of us haveheard the story of
the empress Leizhu, credited
with “discovering” silk nearly
five thousand years ago when asilk cocoon fell into her teacup.
A later princess is said to havespilled the ancient secrets ofsericulture when she smuggledsilkworm eggs in her coiffure
on her way to marry the king of
Khotan.
Photos by Anne Merrow.
FollowingSilk to theSource
Anne Merrow
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In Wuzhen, a water townand living museum outside
Shanghai, there is a shrineto the Silkworm Goddess,whose tragic tale takes place
thousands of years earlier. In
this legend, a lonely girl makesa promise she can’t keep and
finds herself wrapped tightlyin the hide of her belovedwhite horse. A combination ofsadness and magic transforms
her into the first silkworm.With over a thousand years
of history, Wuzhen continues
silk traditions from ancient
and more recent times. In onepart of town, silk cocoons arestretched into stacks, then
drawn out as bed-size squaresof floss to make batting for
silk quilts. The quilts, whichare common in China, arelightweight, breathable, andwarm.
Silk Reeling
The best-known use ofsilk in Wuzhen is woven
brocade, a product thatrequires very fine reeled silk.Inside Wuzhen’s restoredbuildings, artisans reel silk in
two styles: an older methodusing simple foot-poweredreels and a twentieth-century
mechanized method.
Whether the reels are
powered manually or withelectricity, the process ofunspooling the silk cocoons
is similar: A silk worker tendsseveral clusters of bobbingcocoons in near-boiling
water as the filaments aregathered into a fine thread.When a filament has run
out, the cocoon is scooped
The temple of the Silkworm Goddess.
Stacks of stretched layers dryin the sun; stretched further,they form the warm inside ofsilk quilts.
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ilk gets little orno mention in
most books aboutspinning. Woolis our spinningbenchmark, and
specialty fibers like mohair,angora, and alpaca aremore commonly spunthan silk (at least in pure
form; silk is often addedto top, batts, and otherblends). But silk can be funto spin too: it takes dyebeautifully and producesthe most stunning andlustrous fabrics. It should
be a part of every spinner’srepertoire.
Photos by Joe Coca.
Spin to Knit Silk!Sara Lamb
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In designing a knitted lace shawl perfect forpainting, Sara Lamb was inspired by the
shapes and colors of fire. The flame design
starts small at the neckline, and the motifs grow asthe shawl gets larger toward the hem. The three-
quarter shape fits easily around the shoulders.
Photos by Joe Coca.
Flame ShawlSara Lamb
Project Notes
Patt
Sara Lamb spun, designed, and knitted this shawl inorder to paint the flame motif with dyes.