Silk Reeling Workshop

October 20-22, 2023

Michael Cook, who - among other things - runs the delightfully-named website Wormspit came to Houston to teach a workshop called 'Six Slick Silks'. In the workshop, we learned two ways to reel silk (unwinding silk filament from dried cocoons), and got a good bit of practice winding, twisting, and plying it into different configurations.

It's a great class, and if you ever have an opportunity to take it? DO IT

A steel pot half-full of water, with white cocoons completely covering the surface of the water. Extremely fine white filaments come up from the cocoons, through an eye in a copper stand Smooth white caterpillars on a bed of light blue cloth, full of holes, and green leaves, also well munched A stand made of copper pipe with two pulleys up the side and an eye on a pair of arms - one at the top and one at the bottom. A dark towel is held up behind to show the path of the filament, kind of a big X connecting the pulleys and the eyes In the foreground, a wooden crank box with a Japanese-style silk reel mounted in it. In the background, various pots and tools, including a Crock Pot. A vertical skein winder, looks vaguely like a ferris wheel, with a skein of white thread connecting the arms. In the background, other junk, like old desktop computers and dog toys In the foreground, five white weaving bobbins, the end of each labeled with blue washi tape, like "3x2" for 3 filaments, 2 plies. In the background, a small spool with a little thread wond on it, and a larger spool half-full of untwisted filament.

The overall process looks like this:

  1. Heat up the cocoons in water to loosen the filaments.

  2. Use a brush to rough up the outside of the cocoons and catch the ends of the filaments. (They're extremely fine but also really, really strong)

  3. Take the ends of the filament through the cross device (these vary in design) and attach it to the reel.

  4. Wind and wind and wind filament onto the reel until your brain goes numb or your arm gives out. (occasionally add more cocoons, remove the ones that have been used up, and rest your arm)

  5. Wind the filament back and forth between two or more reels or spools until it is completely dry. It should basically stay in motion, drying in the air, as much as possible. At this point, the filament feels a lot like fishing line: stiff and slippery.

  6. Use a spindle or spinning wheel to twist the filaments together. More filaments == thicker thread or yarn.

  7. Use a spindle or spinning wheel to twist threads together in the opposite direction, which is called plying. If you take two threads and twist them together this way, it's a '2-ply yarn'.

  8. Wind the twisted and plied yarn into a skein.

  9. Cook the skein in a pot of soapy water (Synthrapol and washing soda) to remove the gummy coating. Rinse the skein in water, diluted citric acid, more water, diluted fabric softener, and more water. At this point, the yarn/thread is soft and shiny - it's soooooo pretty! This is the step where I really fell in love with it.

  10. Use a pair of sticks (chopsticks worked great) to twist the skein up tight, wringing out as much water as possible, and pulling it taught to stretch and align the filaments. (A process called 'lustering').

  11. Let the skein dry thoroughly, and wind for storage. Individual strands may have stuck together a bit as it dried, so I found I needed to be a little rough with it. Things that looked like knots just weren't - they just needed some combing and popping to come unstuck.

At the end of the class, I came away convinced of a few things:

  • First, that this really is pretty simple to do. While fancy tools, like those Japanese-style reels, can make it easier to make lots and lots of silk thread quickly, they're not actually essential. The filament I reeled using a cheap hand-crank ball winder was just as good.

  • This is a winter project for me, best done outside on the patio. There's a bit of an odor - not wildly unpleasant, but not really what I want my house to smell like, either.

  • I loved making silk thread, but still have no idea what to do with it. It feels too fancy for everyday things, and I'm not sure it'll take the laundry abuse I put my cotton through.