Salt and Miracle Whip and Flat Silk

While I have been finishing the geisha's clothing and stitching her peach, I've also been preparing to start her hair. I deliberately left this until last as I plan to stitch her hair with flat silk to give it the shine a geisha's wig should have. I don't want anything left to stitch that might snag on her wig. If you watched the video I found on the Immortal Geisha site of the man styling the wig, you will have seen the hair is brushed with oil before it is twisted into shape. That helps add a shine to the wig. I think Japanese flat silk will add a similar shine to the wig I'm about to stitch.

You will remember that I laid down a padding base of Soy Silk earlier right across the wig. I also tent stitched the areas between the pink comb in her hair so that I don't have to put flat silk in a small area next to metallic thread that might catch and snag it.

But the main things I've done to prepare to use my flat silk is to pull out my copies of Shay Pendray's Stitching Toward Perfection and Shuji Tamura's Techniques of Japanese Embroidery, and to start preparing my hands. The photo above shows both books, my tube of flat silk from the Japanese Embroidery Center and my Best Laying Tool (or BLT) which is the Americanized version of a tekobari.

We'll talk about the books another time. Right now I want to talk about what I do to smooth my hands when I'm going to handle silk, especially a silk that snags on air like flat silk. Every morning and every evening for the last three days I've been washing my hands and then after I rinse the soap off, I pour 2 teaspoons full of salt into my palm and start rubbing-rubbing-rubbing in all over my fingers and palms, paying special attention to the sides of my thumb and forefinger. If you have cuts or hangnails, the salt will sting but you can use a packet of real sugar instead. (If you've ever been eating at a Seminar and saw folks taking several packets of sugar from the dining room, odds are they are going to smooth their hands for the next day's stitching, not getting sugar for their tea or coffee.) Rinse the salt (or sugar) off, dry your hands, and then apply hand cream. Here are some links to folks talking about what they use. I have not tried the Au Ver a Soie cream but I use both Udderly Smooth and Acid Mantle. The only difference is that I had to special order the Acid Mantle at the drug store and it was more expensive. I've also used Miracle Whip, a plastic squeeze bottle of which I keep in the refrigerator. (I'd highly recommend that you don't let your loved ones catch you absentmindedly rubbing fake mayo into your hands in the kitchen, however!)

Rub everything in well and your hands will be smooth and won't snag the silk badly. Please note that the Japanese Embroidery folks do not use hand cream when they are about to stitch. They simply wash their hands. They feel hand creams don't belong on silks so they would never put any on their silk to tame it like Mary mentions in the link below. I am of two minds about this. I don't worry much about using good conservation techniques but I think I'll keep hand creams well away from my stitching. What you do is up to you!

Hand cream article by Mary Corbet
http://www.needlenthread.com/2007/02/working-with-silk-thread-hand-cream-for.html

Kathy Dyer's recommendations
http://home.comcast.net/~kathydyer/nf_xstitch_tut.html#soft_hands

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow