Spin Knit Win Preview

8/3/2019 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

T



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.



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

A



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.



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

S



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.

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