Silk wrapped purls can come in many sizes and in a few variations. These are all based on a silk wrapped wire that is then wrapped around a needle or wire as I talked about yesterday. They can be wrapped around a triangular shaped wire that is rotating to make a check or taken and stretched and run through rollers to make laid down or silk scallop trim.
The 17th century embroider had access to all these amazing things like the different sizes of silk wrapped purl (we now have 4 sizes!!!).
I have found the silk check in a few places on stump work in the past. A better picture of it is below.
The ripple in the thread is due to the shape of the rotating needle it is wrapped on, you can get a feeling of that by looking down the center of the purls and see how the shape determines that.
For me the texture difference and the play of the two are really, really cool. I wasn't sure it would be able to be made, and when visiting some of the makers recently, I asked if it would be possible. They still had quite a bit of silk covered wire leftover from many of my orders and so we tried it right there and then! It worked and so I asked for all the excess wire to be made up and put it in the shop to see if you all liked it. You did! So I will be looking to see what makes sense going forward to carry some of this long term.
very interesting... where would you use this in needle work?
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