Silk? My new material. And linen.
Washing my new possibly-silk material
So yesterday I washed the Thai silk that I bought on trademe and after work I hung it out to dry. By the time I had finished hanging out the 5-6 pieces, the first ones were nearly dry. Since I thought this was absurd I left them out there for another hour or two anyway. At which point they were definitely completely absolutely dry. (Are any of those words spelt right? Are they supposed to have 'e's? I can never remember.) Another good thing is that they no longer smelt of turpentine. I think that's the liquid that goes with that smell. I find it hard to remember what object associates with what smell. Anyway, I have no idea why they were smelling of what might be turpentine, but they did when I got them out of the washing machine. And so did my hands, presumably from the water from the material on my hands. It was really weird, and it did not smell like that when dry, either before or after washing.
If anyone knows why my material might smell so strange, or whether incredibly rapid drying time is an indication of material being real silk, or not, leave a comment please. One of the materials is a lot softer now, which is nice, except it is the colour of which there is less, and thus will be probably used to make the bits of the garment that would likely be stiffer. This is not a problem but it would have been nice the other way around. Anyway, it is still pretty awesome.
Here's a picture:
The yellow-mustard-brown-gold does look more gold in some lights, and the orange is... orange. The orange is more slubby and the yellow ended up softer.
How to tell real silk
Well, I don't really know how to tell real silk. Yesterday I found the following resources:
I wanted several because when I looked it up last week, I'm sure I found two that stated the exact opposite of each other. Not helpful.
Resource #1 had the following to say:
I don't really know what burning veges or hair smells like, but we'll get to that later.
Resource #2 said:
Resource #3 says a lot, starting with the following advice:
So after I got home yesterday, I tried burning things. I also had the much better idea of holding the to-be-burnt item in metal tongs rather than wrapped around something, because that was annoying. Tongs are better.
First I burnt some hair and smelt it. It smelt foul.
Burning the possible-silk thread - also foul. Good so far.
The possible-silk did in fact stop burning shortly after the flame was removed. Hair does not, but burns quickly in short bursts, interesting.
For other things I burnt a small piece rather than a thread.
Linen just kinda burns really. And smelt like cooked/burnt sugar afterwards. Not bad, although maybe if it burns more it is more bad.
My polka-dot material kind of shrinks and disintegrates into a white ash. I think it is a polyester-cotton mix, probably.
I can't remember what the stuff that I thought was 100% cotton did, soemthing slightly unexpected I think. This was to determine what the "burnt vegetable" smell might be, for furture reference.
A thread from the washcloth-that-used-to-be-part-of-a-towel that was on the bench burnt away nicely to....nothing. It basically vanished in a puff of smoke. Are towels cotton?
But what about the ash from the possible-silk, I am sure I hear you asking? Both the hair and the possible-silk thread burnt up into a little black ball, which was kind of crispy, and could easily be crushed into a black powder. The remains from burning the two was essentially exactly the same. I'm not sure whether they smelt the same or not, but they both smelt foul.
From the evidence I suppose we can say that it is all, or mostly, real silk. However, since I don't have any guaranteed real silk to try, I don't know. The person I bought it off said it was "Thai silk", but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is 100% silk, or that the person THEY bought it off wasn't lying, or whatever.
Linen
Just a point about linen, if you ever wish to buy any (and, since along with wool and silk linen is one of my favourite materials, you should wish to buy some). A lot of things in the shops will say that they are linen and be entirely synthetic, which can be annoying when you see that "linen" of one type or another is on sale and it even looks and feels like linen, or like you think linen should look and feel, but on the tag it says it is 100% not-linen.
I previously would have thought that since they say it is linen, it actually has to be linen. But shortly after being annoyed about it a lot, I discovered that linen is also a weave, ie. it is a name for a particular weaving pattern, namely the perfectly normal one where each thread goes over one, under one, over one, etc. Which is how practially all woven materials are woven. So, technically, anything like that can be called linen and be perfectly correct. I'm not sure that that's why they can call their 100% non-linens linen, but maybe...
As a point of interest, historically, linen fabric woven from linen fibres can be referring to either flax or hemp fibres. But not the type of flax we have in NZ, that's completely different, apparently. I have no idea what this other "flax" stuff is actually supposed to be like. So, I think there should be more hemp linens out there, that would be great. Hemp is so cool too.
I have been finding a lot of good linen at the fabric stores lately, and occasionally what seems to be beautiful linen ridiculously cheap in remnants' bins. Spotlight now occasionally sells linen very cheaply too, and cheaper than the other shops in Dunedin. You have to look through the bolts though to find exactly which colour and weight happens to be half or a third the price of the other ones.
Good linen is such a lovely material, and there are so many types of "good" linen. There is heavy but soft linen. There is light, fine and somewhat see-through linen. There is silky, smooth linen. I would kill someone for "bed linen" made out of appropriately good linen.
See the article on linen in Wikipedia for a bit of information, checking especially the "Linen's history" section for information on why it is such a good and useful material.
Back to the silk
I forgot to mention it, but the Thai silk sounds perfect. I mean, as in, the sound it makes is perfect. I think I recall talking about how I wanted the wedding material to sound some time back, and this is it. That's how I know this is the right material. It is practically destined to be, because it SOUNDS PERFECT. Rustling, like leaves perhaps. Just as I imagined it even though I've never owned anything that makes that sound, and it fits with the autumn-themed idea of the dress.
(Just to clarify, yes, autumnal wedding with what looks like it will be an orange dress. But don't worry, it'll be fine. Really. Hopefully. The yellow will help neutralise the orange and neither of them actually look bad on me. And there'll be something else to go over the top of it.)
So yesterday I washed the Thai silk that I bought on trademe and after work I hung it out to dry. By the time I had finished hanging out the 5-6 pieces, the first ones were nearly dry. Since I thought this was absurd I left them out there for another hour or two anyway. At which point they were definitely completely absolutely dry. (Are any of those words spelt right? Are they supposed to have 'e's? I can never remember.) Another good thing is that they no longer smelt of turpentine. I think that's the liquid that goes with that smell. I find it hard to remember what object associates with what smell. Anyway, I have no idea why they were smelling of what might be turpentine, but they did when I got them out of the washing machine. And so did my hands, presumably from the water from the material on my hands. It was really weird, and it did not smell like that when dry, either before or after washing.
If anyone knows why my material might smell so strange, or whether incredibly rapid drying time is an indication of material being real silk, or not, leave a comment please. One of the materials is a lot softer now, which is nice, except it is the colour of which there is less, and thus will be probably used to make the bits of the garment that would likely be stiffer. This is not a problem but it would have been nice the other way around. Anyway, it is still pretty awesome.
Here's a picture:
The yellow-mustard-brown-gold does look more gold in some lights, and the orange is... orange. The orange is more slubby and the yellow ended up softer.How to tell real silk
Well, I don't really know how to tell real silk. Yesterday I found the following resources:
I wanted several because when I looked it up last week, I'm sure I found two that stated the exact opposite of each other. Not helpful.
Resource #1 had the following to say:
"Burn a few strands of the material. If it smells like hair, it's authentic. If it smells like burning vegetable, it's cotton."Well, this isn't mercerised cotton, obviously, but interesting to know. There advice was supposed to be regarding scarves that look like they could be either.
I don't really know what burning veges or hair smells like, but we'll get to that later.
Resource #2 said:
"The thread should simply ball up and turn to ash when lit.Cool, handy. Resource #2 also tells us why it smells of hair, which is of course because it is made of the same sort of stuff.
The burning silk should smell like burning hair. (...)
The ash should be black and crispy/brittle.
As soon as the flame is removed, the thread should do nothing more (no further burning)."
Resource #3 says a lot, starting with the following advice:
"For this test, you only need your nose and a pocket lighter (matches won't work due to their aggressive smell of sulphur)."Ok, cool. And then:
"As a second step, set fire to a single thread of the fabric, which you wrap around a key or anything else flame-proof(!), with your lighter. The thread should flare up and burn instantly and almost white, leaving a greyish-black powdery residue and smelling of burnt horn. If you do not know this particular smell, chip off a small slice of your fingernails and burn it, again taking precautions against burning yourself! "Safety tips, plus advice to burn your fingernail. Ha ha.
So after I got home yesterday, I tried burning things. I also had the much better idea of holding the to-be-burnt item in metal tongs rather than wrapped around something, because that was annoying. Tongs are better.
First I burnt some hair and smelt it. It smelt foul.
Burning the possible-silk thread - also foul. Good so far.
The possible-silk did in fact stop burning shortly after the flame was removed. Hair does not, but burns quickly in short bursts, interesting.
For other things I burnt a small piece rather than a thread.
Linen just kinda burns really. And smelt like cooked/burnt sugar afterwards. Not bad, although maybe if it burns more it is more bad.
My polka-dot material kind of shrinks and disintegrates into a white ash. I think it is a polyester-cotton mix, probably.
I can't remember what the stuff that I thought was 100% cotton did, soemthing slightly unexpected I think. This was to determine what the "burnt vegetable" smell might be, for furture reference.
A thread from the washcloth-that-used-to-be-part-of-a-towel that was on the bench burnt away nicely to....nothing. It basically vanished in a puff of smoke. Are towels cotton?
But what about the ash from the possible-silk, I am sure I hear you asking? Both the hair and the possible-silk thread burnt up into a little black ball, which was kind of crispy, and could easily be crushed into a black powder. The remains from burning the two was essentially exactly the same. I'm not sure whether they smelt the same or not, but they both smelt foul.
From the evidence I suppose we can say that it is all, or mostly, real silk. However, since I don't have any guaranteed real silk to try, I don't know. The person I bought it off said it was "Thai silk", but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is 100% silk, or that the person THEY bought it off wasn't lying, or whatever.
Linen
Just a point about linen, if you ever wish to buy any (and, since along with wool and silk linen is one of my favourite materials, you should wish to buy some). A lot of things in the shops will say that they are linen and be entirely synthetic, which can be annoying when you see that "linen" of one type or another is on sale and it even looks and feels like linen, or like you think linen should look and feel, but on the tag it says it is 100% not-linen.
I previously would have thought that since they say it is linen, it actually has to be linen. But shortly after being annoyed about it a lot, I discovered that linen is also a weave, ie. it is a name for a particular weaving pattern, namely the perfectly normal one where each thread goes over one, under one, over one, etc. Which is how practially all woven materials are woven. So, technically, anything like that can be called linen and be perfectly correct. I'm not sure that that's why they can call their 100% non-linens linen, but maybe...
As a point of interest, historically, linen fabric woven from linen fibres can be referring to either flax or hemp fibres. But not the type of flax we have in NZ, that's completely different, apparently. I have no idea what this other "flax" stuff is actually supposed to be like. So, I think there should be more hemp linens out there, that would be great. Hemp is so cool too.
I have been finding a lot of good linen at the fabric stores lately, and occasionally what seems to be beautiful linen ridiculously cheap in remnants' bins. Spotlight now occasionally sells linen very cheaply too, and cheaper than the other shops in Dunedin. You have to look through the bolts though to find exactly which colour and weight happens to be half or a third the price of the other ones.
Good linen is such a lovely material, and there are so many types of "good" linen. There is heavy but soft linen. There is light, fine and somewhat see-through linen. There is silky, smooth linen. I would kill someone for "bed linen" made out of appropriately good linen.
See the article on linen in Wikipedia for a bit of information, checking especially the "Linen's history" section for information on why it is such a good and useful material.
Back to the silk
I forgot to mention it, but the Thai silk sounds perfect. I mean, as in, the sound it makes is perfect. I think I recall talking about how I wanted the wedding material to sound some time back, and this is it. That's how I know this is the right material. It is practically destined to be, because it SOUNDS PERFECT. Rustling, like leaves perhaps. Just as I imagined it even though I've never owned anything that makes that sound, and it fits with the autumn-themed idea of the dress.
(Just to clarify, yes, autumnal wedding with what looks like it will be an orange dress. But don't worry, it'll be fine. Really. Hopefully. The yellow will help neutralise the orange and neither of them actually look bad on me. And there'll be something else to go over the top of it.)
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