Comments on: Who is Doing the Spinning?

By: coral-seas

coral-seas — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:23:24 +0000

I am particularly interested in this topic. I know nothing about the history side of threads and embroidery so my thought are purely conjecture. I am studying Japanese Embroidery, and, as Tricia touches on in an earlier posts, in JE we make our own twisted threads from flat silk. We learn a variety of different twist effects including some than incorporate metallic threads, although to date I have not encountered one that exactly resembles GST. Seeing the variety of twists that can be made at the frame, I find it highly plausible that the embroider (or someone within the workshop) was twisting these threads as required. The fact that there are different types of twist, with and without gold made from the same dye lot strongly supports this theory. Japanese embroiderers have been doing this for over a thousand years, I (who embroider purely for pleasure) can do it with the most basic equipment, surely these highly skilled professionals also did it?

Now, if I can only figure out how to make GST

By: Linda Vinson

Linda Vinson — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 06:01:48 +0000

I have a friend who is an engineer by training, but is also both a spinner (as well as a master knitter and a weaver) and a jeweler. I’ll ask her to take a look at this website and at my silk gilt twist thread and see what she thinks would be possible to do on a typical historical spinning wheel. (Or even an atypical one. *smile*)

By: Judith Miller

Judith Miller — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 02:22:28 +0000

Hi..interesting questions. Have you tried posing them to Bill Barnes? Perhaps he might have some useful history on his craft as a wire drawer. Judith