Michael grew up in Houston, Texas and now lives in Dallas. He has two dogs and two cats and at any given time up to two thousand caterpillars! You see he raises silkworms and reels silk from their cocoons.
As a child he learned to sew and crochet from one grandmother, to draw and paint from the other.
“I taught myself to knit. My mom’s mother made a valiant effort when I was a child, and I managed to pick up sewing, crochet, and embroidery, but my hands just wouldn’t do the motions required for knitting. I was probably six or seven or eight; I remember trying it a couple of different summer vacations. Years later, having learned to weave and spin, I decided I wanted to figure out knitting, and I picked up a book and slogged my way through, English style. I did a scarf and some swatches, then put it away. After a reallymagical trip to Peru, where *everyone* knits, crochets, weaves, and spins, I was inspired to pick it back up again, and figured out Continental knitting with the help of knittinghelp.com (then valleycafe.com) and lots of practice.”
When asked about his most significant project so far, Michaels replies:
“For me, it has been a little amulet bag that I am working on, made from hand-spun wild Polyphemus silk. These moths live across most of North America, eating oak and beech and birch trees, and they spin a tussah-like silk that spins into a golden-beige sparkly yarn. I’m not done with the pouch yet, but the thing that’s special about it to me, is the completeness of the process – raising the moths from eggs, degumming and carding out the silk, spinning it, knitting it on 000′s.”
Michael has page after page of tutorials on the entire silk process from reeling to dyeing on his webpage (link below). Also be sure to read his article published over at Knitty about silkworms. More recently Michael was seen dancing in a Willie Nelson video; find a link to the video on his blog. He will also be featured on HGTV’s show “That’s Clever” this fall/winter (date to be announced).
Michael’s Website
Michael’s Blog
Knitty article written by Michael
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
That was very interesting! I found the moth lives/larvas interesting and quite beautiful. Thank you for writing about this.
i loved the quotes, that is how i feel about knitting too – will . have . to . try . again