Hello Sewing Friends!
Today I am happy to add some exceptional new silks to the SILK and INDIA collections and bring you a one-day special on both. Shop MARCYTILTON.com today (3/16/23) and enjoy 15-57% off all fabrics in the INDIA and SILK collections on MARCYTILTON.com.
India has an ancient and storied textile tradition spanning back many millennia. The earliest surviving Indian threads date back 6000 years. Textiles were so tightly woven into ancient India’s identity that Greeks and Babylonians used the word India to refer to cotton in much the same we we might say Kleenex instead of tissue.
Early tussahs, or textured silks, were woven from wild cocoons and referred to as bark cloth. India has the unique distinction of being the only country producing all five known commercial silks—mulberry, tropical tasar, oak tasar, eri and muga.
India’s silk forests are considered so sacred that there is an ancient cultural tradition of people protecting the caterpillars from predators. Unlike seasonal crops, sericulture can be done year round and harvested as often as 5–6 times a year.
Silk is the reigning queen of all fibers for good reasons. Silk somehow keeps us warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It is the strongest natural fiber on earth —delicate yet durable. If you were to scale a single silk thread up to the size of a steel beam, silk would be stronger.
A single cocoon is made of a continuous strand of raw silk stretching about one kilometer long. Four to eight strands are twisted together to create a single silk thread. For a little perspective, it takes roughly 2,500 cocoons to produce one pound of raw silk, and unravelling them is no easy business.
So today we celebrate silks from India with a one-day special! Your instant savings will be automatically applied all day to all fabrics in your cart from the INDIA and SILK collections. Below is a selection of some of our new silks, and you’ll find many more on MARCYTILTON.com.
Happy Sewing!
