Phew!
The first experiment with silk reeling is complete. Giulia and I were promised that the pupae soup would smell like dead bugs, and it did. As smells go, it's notably less bad than others I've experienced. The downside is that it lingers. I can still smell it after an Indian dinner. Oh well. The silk is very, very pretty. So pretty that I'm about to go show it around at the party I'm late for.
We've worked a few kinks out of the process. Things learned: 1) For the love of Pete, DON'T use a swift that collapses. We lost a lot of fiber that way. 2) Winding directly onto a ball winder seems to work. And even if it does end up cementing itself into a so-pretty napkin ring, we have a backup plan. 3) Having more than three strands going at a time is a Good Thing. 4) Having two people working probably isn't essential, but it's both more fun and faster, as one person can hunt for new ends while the other reels, and the way we were going, we needed one about every time one was ready. 5) The official term for running out of silk on a cocoon has become "We've hit bugness." 6) Three strands is not nearly enough. 7-9 works much better.
And happily, this whole thing involves fiber, which means we can just spin our mistakes and still have perfectly good yarn. I love my hobby... er, hobbies.
We've worked a few kinks out of the process. Things learned: 1) For the love of Pete, DON'T use a swift that collapses. We lost a lot of fiber that way. 2) Winding directly onto a ball winder seems to work. And even if it does end up cementing itself into a so-pretty napkin ring, we have a backup plan. 3) Having more than three strands going at a time is a Good Thing. 4) Having two people working probably isn't essential, but it's both more fun and faster, as one person can hunt for new ends while the other reels, and the way we were going, we needed one about every time one was ready. 5) The official term for running out of silk on a cocoon has become "We've hit bugness." 6) Three strands is not nearly enough. 7-9 works much better.
And happily, this whole thing involves fiber, which means we can just spin our mistakes and still have perfectly good yarn. I love my hobby... er, hobbies.