Sea silk is luxury fabric. It is an ultra fine, rare silk that comes from a large clam found off the Mediterranean coast. The silk is very light and warm and if treated with lemon juice turns a bright golden colour that glistens in the sun.
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| The chasuble of St Yves which is on display in Louannec church -photo credit: ferrebeekeeper |
An article about
sea silk weaving found in the
BBC's online magazine here focuses on one of the last known Italian weavers of this delicate fabric.
There are photos of the clam and its fine byssus thread
here on Wikipedia and also on the blog
ferrebeekeeper here. Unfortunately the clams which can grow up to one metre are fast disappearing due to pollution and overfishing.
I had a conversation about this yesterday with a friend at the Guild who had seen a TV program about it this week! Thanks for the links.
ReplyDeleteI found a couple more articles when I Googled Louannec and the chasuble of St Yves, some with more photos of just how gold-like the thread is.
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