A few years ago I was given some gorgeous multi-coloured Throwsters waste in a fibre swap. I’ve always used it sparingly, worried it’d run out and I’d have to begrudgingly pay a ridiculous amount of money for a tiny handful. Then a few months ago I was ordering wool and fibres from World of Wool and thought I’d take the plunge and order some gummed throwster’s waste since it cost less for 100g than most people charge for 10g dyed. I had no idea it’d be so stiff and dull! The complete opposite of what I was used to. I had absolutely no idea how to de-gum it either 
A couple of days later after a few hours searching the internet, I was confident I’d pieced together enough info to try de-gumming for myself. I thought I’d probably have to try it a few times before getting it right, but was pleasantly surprised to see it work first time with excellent results
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- Gummed silk throwsters waste
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- De-gummed silk throwsters waste
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- Untangled silk throwsters waste
If you’d like to try it yourself, or are just interested in the process, I’ve made a tutorial with lots of photos and an easy to follow table for working out quantities.
Degumming Silk Throwsters Waste
I’ll be following up later this week with a tutorial for direct dyeing small amounts of animal fibres with acid dyes, which can be used to dye your degummed throwster’s waste some gorgeous colours
I have to say Thank You to foragingfibers whose pictures convinced me it was worth trying to degum my own throwster’s waste
Thats an awesome tutorial zed, i have a whole bag of this that i’m definitely going to degum now
Thanks, Kaz
I’ll look forward to seeing your results!
Excellent tutorial Zed. I have not used throwsters waste, was not sure what it looked like so that was very helpful, I find it is hard sometimes if you have not used a particular fiber or seen it out of the packet to understand what can be done with it, also if it costs $ you hesitate to experiment. There are so many different terms for all the silk bits, I was confused as to what silk hankies were for some time, and thanks to another of your tutorials I am familiar with silk rods but there are still a lot terms and silk bits that I have yet to use.
Thanks a lot Jane
Yeah, I know what you mean, and sometimes you still don’t really know what a fibre can do until you’ve tried it yourself.
We’re trying to add as much info as possible on all the different fibres used in felting, or at least lots of photos of fibres before felting, and also examples of them being used added to the gallery sub pages.
I think the silk page: http://feltingandfiberstudio.com/other-fibers/silk-fibers/
and the silk gallery: http://feltingandfiberstudio.com/other-fibers/silk-fibers/gallery/
have the most pictures so far.
They added the picture carousel after we’d added most of the content, but if you click ‘permalink’ under any photo, it goes to a much bigger photo.
Brilliant tutorial, zed! I have only used dyed throwster’s waste and have never even seen throwster’s waste that needed to be degummed so this was a fascinating read. Thanks for the great pictures and very clear directions. If I ever come across gummed throwster’s waste, I’ll be ready!
Thanks, Beth
Dyed Throwster’s waste is so gorgeous but so expensive, if I’d known myself it was so cheap and easy to degum and dye my own, I’d have done it a long time ago!
Amen to that Zed. I’ll be trying this in future. Thanks
Thanks, LIz
I just added a dyeing tutorial too.
I have half a kilo of it so I am going to give this a try over the Christmas holidays. My friend who has the other half a kilo will be coming over so we can do it together and combine our dye for the next step.
Cool, lucky you having so much! I can’t wait to see how it turns out
excellent stuff! very clear and useful!!! will re-post around if you dont mind!
Thanks a lot
No, of course I don’t mind if you re-post
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