Repeat
I just had to add my two cents on this piece of ’show and tell’ that Carolyn Wetzel brought in at the last session. I had close-up pictures that I really wanted to post as they showed the gilt sylke twist used as bobbin lace. It was very exciting to see her piece. I had been thinking about begging someone to try it out. Carolyn had a few comments on working with it from a ‘how-to’ point of view. I hope we can convince her to add her experience to the blog as a record.
There are others out there trying this thread for a number of other stitches and uses that were not historically found. Please let us know what you are doing with it. I can tell you that I made GST silk purl by hand about a month ago for a project I will be teaching. I will try to post a picture of it soon. Another very, very strange twist is that the thread is conductive. Of course, if you wrap a copper-silver-gold wire around silk, it is basically an electrical wire. My main occupation is in a field called electronic textiles which is now growing rapidly. One of the big problems in that field is that all the yarns we use are gray (stainless steel or silver based). The industry has been very excited by this GST 
development and many researchers are trying the thread to see what other textile processing techniques can be used without destroying the wire wrap. I hope we can find some good ones, for both the historic and modern users will help provide a market to keep the thread alive.
Tricia
Tags: bobbin lace, Carolyn W, electronic textiles, GST, show & tell, Tricia
September 11th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
tricia,
please let us know where and when you will be teaching!
Thanks,
Norma
September 12th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
The main feature of the thread that I had to learn to deal with is similar to what the stitchers have noted: it is raspy when rubbed against other threads. This means that when tensioning, I had to be very careful to note if the GST got caught anywhere and had to fuss with it a bit more than some other threads. The positive side was that once in place, it did not move much because of the wire structure.
Another tensioning problem was that the silk stretched a bit more than the metal, so if pulling too hard the wire would break leaving an area of bare filament silk that “puffed” a bit if not twisted. These areas were not very noticable if in whole stitch cloth, but showed up more in half stitch or filling areas. Once I got used to it, though, I could avoid over-pulling and my rate of metal-popping went way down.
If the GST rubbed too much on the edge of a bobbin or hairclip (I used the same kind of small hair clip to hold the thread on the bobbin as is used for the metal threads, shown on an earlier blog entry) the wire would break, so I also learned to make sure I moved the rubbing spot often. Kind of like avoiding nerve wear in carpel tunnel syndrome!
I’ve now finished the Torchon square with the GST so can also comment on tying off with it. I used magic threads at the start, so just had to pull the GST through the loops. It was raspy, and in one case my magic thread broke because it was so much thinner and weaker. Overall, though, it was easy to manage the GST and the knots held well. I used a surgeon’s knot(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgeon’s_knot) to make sure the silk held tight. The knot ends could be bent over to a spot on the back and stayed put because of the wire.
And the outcome? The colors are wonderful, the lace has some structure from the wire so I could see using it for flowers, leaves, etc in 3-D work, sort of a middle-ground between silk and actual metal wire. The gold is not obvious but adds another depth of sheen to the silk, and glimmers subtly in certain angles of light. I really like it and plan to use it for more lace pieces.
-Carolyn W
September 15th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Re: electrically-conducting threads – is aluminum too weak? or does anodyzing (sp?) change the conductivity? (Remember those ’50’s tumblers that sweated like a whole air conditioner if you so much as thought about putting an ice cube in them?) I know one of the big problems with aluminum wiring in trailers was that the aluminum stretched/shrank at different rates than any other metal it was connected to, causing shorts, but since I don’t know what you’re using this conductive thread for, figured it was worth asking . . .