Sunday, May 22, 2005

Silk Cocoons

I've been selling the silk cocoons like crazy lately, thanks to an article in Quilting Arts Magazine. I've also been setting the catepillars free from the cocoons, as some of my customers can't do it, hate bugs, hands can't take the strain of using scissors like that, etc...

So tonight I had a wild idea, it was a God moment actually because my wrists were killing me from cutting the catepillars out of those cocoons, use a serrated knife! I tried one and presto it worked like a charm! Praise God Almighty I say!!! I have to say if you only have scissors then go for it, but the serrated bread knife worked far better, far faster, and was safer than the scissors. I can't tell you how many times I stabbed myself with the scissors trying to poke the blade into the cocoon.

BTW Did I mention I cut open 300+ cocoons tonight? It only took me an hour, last time I cut open 90 cocoons, with the scissors, and it took me about 4 hours, like I said my hands were killing me.

4 comments:

Pat Dolan said...

What do you do with the little worms!!
390 and counting... are they dead or alive? Can silk worms survive in our climate? Good grief but I'm an odd one to think of things like this!

Anonymous said...

Why do you let them out of the cocoons before they hatch out as moths? They will not survive and turn into moths that way.

Anonymous said...

I don't quite understand your sustainable approach if you are killing hundreds of silkworms, or am I missing something?

k baxter packwood said...

Well the simplest answer is the silk worms were already dead. So dead in fact they have been dead for well over ten years now. I did not kill the silk worms, they came this way – dead.