Hello from Northern Canada

[bogorchid]

Hi, my name is Dawn. I am most interested in crafting technologies from the Neolithic & earlier, but any creative endeavour using hand gathered materials from the land excites me. I have been practicing wet felting, handspinning by drop spindle, sewing, cordage making..working mainly with slender stinging nettle, wild animal fibers, angora bunny wool, as well as my own bog/bark tanned hides.. and now I am learning backstrap weaving, knitting, and wild sericulture.

My current focus is raising my first wild giant silkmoth species native to this subarctic forest, the polyphemus moth, after finding one female cocoon last winter. I've had some major obstacles --like the intense wildfires in my region causing me to evacuate with my baby caterpillars!-- but I'm not giving up. My dream project for the next few years is to spin my own silk thread, weave it, and sew into a complete garment set. I practice tai chi and always wished for a silk uniform to wear, so I am thinking that's what I'll go for first. I know it will likely take me a few years and that's just fine. Slow crafts are the best.

Thank you & I look forward to learning from you all,
Dawn

[Shepherdess]

Welcome. You are a busy person. I am in southern Canada. Have you tried to gather any arctic hare fibre for spinning or felting? I didn't know we had a silkworm species here in Canada. That is so cool.
I look forward to hearing and seeing what you are up to.

[lyn]

Hello Dawn - welcome to the forum. Sounds like you have a lot of interesting stuff to share

[bogorchid]

Hi Ann, thank you!
I have worked the hides of snowshoe hares before..but I haven't tried spinning their fur! I would love to someday. Most of the wild animal furs I have spun are when my hide tanning projects don't end up how I hoped, like when they have fur slippage or when I just know a hide is no good for fur-on tanning. So then I gather all the fur and process it. A lot of them I have to blend with angora or others to make a strong enough yarn to work with.

Also, about the silkmoths--we have many native species of Saturniid moths (the same family as tussah & eri silkmoths) that make silk cocoons, but not all of them make a silk strong enough to craft with. This wikipedia page was helpful to me when I first started dreaming up this project: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_moths_of_Canada_(Saturniidae)
I am finding the polyphemus silk I kept (from the female & multiple male cocoons), so far very similar to that of other "wild silks" and even mulberry silk, it is very strong. They are hardier and easier to rear than many other species. But I will eventually experiment with others also. Mulberry silk is always a possibility wherever there are mulberry trees..simply too cold here..so the harshness of my home forced me to be creative if I wanted to work with my own home-grown silk! Having wild moths come to pair with my moth was also just magical to witness

Thank you Lyn for the welcome! I look forward to it (sharing & learning both) !

[MTRuth]

Welcome Dawn, I'm glad you joined us. I look forward to seeing some of your projects and the silk moth project especially. It's great that you are teaching yourself how to do all of these things. Please feel free to share photos, questions, and go back to look at old posts as there is tons of information here. If you need help with photos, look under the top section FAQ.

[charley]

Welcome from me too. I am really looking forward to seeing some of your projects.