Chapter 8 - Use of Purls or Bullion

MM157/159 show examples of purls made using various materials that have been wrapped round different cores:

• external telephone wire to house (thanks to Christmas storm of 2013) that was stripped down to reveal the seven wires inside.  Using one stand of the wire gave little memory when wrapped.  I tried wrapping it around the flat end of a 10" upholstery regulator and banging it with a hammer to try to 'help' it keep its shape but in the end I wrapped it round a pencil under pressure which gave me what you see. Three of the wires were plaited and then wrapped around a pencil.  The plaiting gave the wire more stability and inclination to keep its shape. Two samples were made of the wire twisted together - one with more twist - and these were again wrapped around a pencil under pressure.  More twists gave the wire more stability and inclination to retain the wrapping shape.
• crochet yarn was wrapped round a cocktail stick, coated with dilute PVA , left to dry and removed.
• paper-coated cake decorating wire was wrapped around a pencil.  This would give the option to colour the 'purl' as required.
• smoothed Ferrero Rocher and silver sweet papers
• kinked wire wrapped around pencil
• plaited wire wrapped around pencil
• other materials used were wires of various diameters and brown paper covered garden twine.

MM158 shows various tubular shapes made from looping around a mould.  The willow twig sampler was made at a wonderful weekend with Mary Crabb at West Dean and the additional shapes on returning home.  I include them here as they would give me the option of using a larger 'purl', made-to-measure tubular shape, diameter decided by the mould.   Paper yarn, wire and gold thread have been used to make the shapes. The paper yarn would again give the option to colour the shape.