Thursday, March 20, 2008

Tussah Silk

I’ve recently fallen head over heels for Noro Silk Garden Lite. The colors are amazing and the silk content means that they’re not too scratchy.

“Hey wait a minute, what are you doing using silk yarns!!!!” said the little voice in my head. “You’ve never used silk before on principle. You know how silk is collected. Companies raise silkworms, wait for them to form cocoons, then throw the cocoons into boiling water thus killing the moth before it has the opportunity to eat through the cocoon and emerge. Cultivated silk is obtained either through boiling or puncture the cocoon, killing the moth and salvaging the silk cocoon for one continuous thread.”

Natural Tussah silk is collected in the wild from the empty cocoons that moths have already vacated. That is the silk I should use if I want to use silk. So going forward, it’s nothing but Tussah for this vegetarian. I need to find a list of commerical yarns that uses Tussah silk. I think Jager might. Unless I find documentation that Noro is using Tussah silk, it’s no longer an option for me.

1 comment:

Kara said...

Knitter, knitter, quite contrary, how does your yarn stash grow!