Posted by R Siegel on Wednesday, 14 April 2010, at 11:39 a.m.:
In Reply to: Re: Question about silk roving posted by Sally on Tuesday, 13 April 2010, at 6:16 p.m.:
Yes, in reeled silk, the strands from several cocoons are reeled together, the number of strands governed by the thickness desired. I have some reeled silk that has 65 strands and it is still a little finer than the average quilting thread (this is on the thick side for reeled silk). After they reel the silk it is given a very slight amount of twist. However, the main thing that is contributing to its structural integrity it the natural gooey sticky gummy stuff (can't think of the name of it offhand), of which a lot remains after the cocoons are placed in hot water for softening. This "glue" is left on until the silk is made into yarn, thread, or fabric and then boiled off.
Reeled silk looks like fine thread, so it doesn't sound like this is what you want for your project. To use silk roving (what you have is probably more accurately called combed top) maybe you could consider braiding it. If you don't want a fat braid, maybe you could carefully split the combed top lengthwise into 3 sections and braid these. Or maybe you could simply take your combed top as is and tie a piece of fibery something (yarn, thread, fabric strip, ribbon etc.) around it every inch, or whatever distance it needs, to stable-ize it.