The Spinner 1873 William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Some of you linguaphiles may already know A Word A Day - The daily e-mail giving an unusual word, its etymology and definition. This week the words have been related to spinning and are very interesting. Here is a set of links to the week's words.

Distaff
Spinster
Dizen
Subtile
Homespun


Jenny Dean's Wild Colour Reissued.

This classic book on natural dye use has started many fibre artists on their journey. It has been out of print for a number of years. Used copies consistently fetched high prices on Ebay. Now we are happy to report that the UK edition has just been launched with the North American Edition to be released in November.

Jenny gives full details of the reissue as well as information on any differences between editions on her blog. She also give some background on the publication process and the requests of editors on both sides of the ocean. Check it out here. Maiwa has copies on order. When they arrive they will be available in our stores and online.

Your comments are welcome.

We came across Wormspit when we were doing silk research for our 2008 trip to Assam. If you have any interest in silk you need to know about Michael Cook, his blog (which goes back to 2003) and his site, Wormspit (www.wormspit.com). It is detailed, informed, supported by copious high-quality close-up photos, and at times outrageously funny. There is equal emphasis on raising the insects and working with the fibers.



Michael Cook, who lives in Dallas, Texas, got started raising silkworms in 2001 after he had already been weaving for ten years. Since then he's been raising various breeds, reeling the silks, dyeing the fibers and documenting the process. He was recently published in the Fall 2009 issue of SpinOff magazine and was the sericulturalist for the American Museum of Natural History's video Traditional Silk Making Today (with music by the Silk Road Project).