On Aug 7, 2005, at 19:52, susan wrote:
i think it is when they kill the worm before it comes out of the coccoon so they can have the silk unbroken that it is considered cruel.
Indeed that's the case. The Chinese legend of how silk "came to be" tells the story of an empress who was taking her tea in the pleasant shade of a mulberry tree, when something plopped into her tea-cup. When she tried to fish it out, it unreeled (and unreeled, and unreeled... <g> A single coccoon has hundreds - if not thousands - of yards of spit...)
it is supposed to be stronger that way.
And smoother. If you kill the larva inside the coccoon, you can unreel the coccoon as a single strand. It's extremely fine and needs to be plied even before spinning, but it's very strong, being "long staple". If you let the larva mature... In order to get out, it has to chomp a hole through the coccoon. Since the coccoon isn't all that big to begin with (the ones I'd seen were 1.5" - max - in length, and about 5/8" in diameter at the widest point), that means that the filament lengths are about 2-3" long, at least at the point of the hole - a much shorter staple
i have never bought either kind of silk fiber,
I buy silk for lace work and used to for clothes (and prefer the cruel kind too <g>). I also eat (and enjoy) meat. I love a down-fille pillow and quilt, even though I've seen how much geese dislike being plucked for it. And I love wool, even though sheep, while being shorn, resent it loudly. And I'd rahter have one pair of shoes but leather, than 4 plastic ones. Anything else I consider cruelty to me, and I'm as much of an animal as the rest of them
-- Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
