Making a paper with a difference, silk fibres are dyed and worked to create a wonderful silky base which can be used as paper, as the basic material for a textile art work or as a bowl, a vase, or anything your imagination comes up with.

WHAT IS SILK PAPER?

Also called silk fusion or sometimes silk felt, this is a glued together textile, using silk and/or other fibers.

The very bright white silk is called mulberry silk because the farmed silk worms are fed on mulberry leaves which results in bright white cocoons. Wild silk worms have a more varied diet and their cocoons can be coloured from pale champagne colour to strong tea. This type of silk is called Tussah.

Raw silk is still containing sericin - the natural gum which coats the silk strands when the cocoon is made.

You can buy degummed filaments where the sericin has been removed by soaking the silk in
a warm alkali bath.

In China it has been used for centuries for official letters and documents.

Since it was rather expensive, the creative Chinese people recycled silk rags into pulp which could then be used as paper.

Silk can now easily be bought from craft shops. Choose from dyed or undyed fibres (which you can dye with Acid dyes yourself if you wish) to make your own fascinating silk paper.