Hi Knotty,

Silk comes in Rovings, like wool for spinning, or a "cap" for spinning. I am not that interested in de-gumming the cocoon and making the roving myself, thought about it but... Last thing I need is another craft to do. and a few ounces of silk is not expensive, the broken cucoons asre what they use to make Silk Dupioni fabric. Notice the slubs in it.. that is from a cucoon where a worm has broken the threads of the cocoon...

Valeria,
Yes they did re-use pearls as well a fauxs, as far as seed pearl strug separately that is the couching method.. I use that one lots and unless teh strign breaks it works. I can find plenty of period documetation and extant pieces for that... however what I have found there is no eveidence of knots between the pearls in period pieces... you can see where the pearls were supposed to be abd the pearls "hanging" on the threads. Maybe the Victorians knew better..

Now maybe you may have some stuff I have not come across yet? That would be awesome...

I am looking specifically for Non-European pre 1600 stringing Methods methods... Persian, China, India, Ceylon, Bahrain..

Blast it all.. I am still on the search for period bow drills as well I have some woodcuts but somewhre there has to be (I keep hoping) a descripotion of a bow drill! So I can correctly make mine!

Back to the Hunt....

Thanks!