Silk Production


Book Description

With reference to India.




The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice


Book Description

How 16th century Venetian silk manufacturers met the challenge of demand for lighter and cheaper fabric. The manufacture of luxury textiles, such as silk, was central to an Italian Renaissance economy based on status and conspicuous consumption. From the rapidly changing fashions that drove demand to the jobs created for craftsmen, weavers, and merchants, the wealth and prestige associated with silk throughout Europe made it Italy's leading export industry. In this important book, Luca Molà examines the silk industry in Renaissance Venice amid changing markets, suppliers, producers, and government regulations. Drawing on archival research and a vast amount of European scholarship, Molà documents the innovations Venetians made in manufacturing and marketing to spur the silk industry. He uncovers the alliance between manufacturers and government to promote the industry in a changing international economic environment. Through flexible laws, quality was regulated to meet the varying requirements of an increasing range of customers. Molà also analyzes state policy that favored the development and organization of silk producers throughout the Terraferma. His findings contribute in an important way to the ongoing scholarly assessment of Venice's place in the economy of the Renaissance and the Mediterranean world.




Threads of Global Desire


Book Description

Considering silk as a major force of cross-cultural interaction, this book examines the integration of silk production and consumption into various cultures in the pre-modern world.




Biotechnology of Silk


Book Description

This book is a snapshot of the current state of the art of research and development on the properties and characteristics of silk and their use in medicine and industry. The field encompasses backyard silk production from ancient time to industrial methods in the modern era and includes an example of efforts to maintain silk production on Madagascar. Once revered as worth its weight in gold, silk has captured the imagination from its mythical origins onwards. The latest methods in molecular biology have opened new descriptions of the underlying properties of silk. Advances in technological innovation have created silk production by microbes as the latest breakthrough in the saga of silk research and development. The application of silk to biomaterials is now very active on the basis of excellent properties of silks including recombinant silks for biomaterials and the accumulated structural information.




The Silk Industry in America...


Book Description




The Complete Book of Silk Screen Printing Production


Book Description

This book gives a clear and complete picture of every aspect of press operation and silk screen technique — from individually operated manual presses to modern automatic presses capable of turning out 2,000–3,000 impressions an hour — and indicates its great versatility and range of applications. Extremely thorough in its coverage of the subject, this volume includes practically everything of importance known about the silk screen process. After a brief historical account, which shows how screen process has become one of the most important of the graphic arts, the author provides detailed information on basic tools and equipment, stencil making and photo stencil methods, multicolor work, facts about paints, lacquers, and other compounds, and tips on matching colors and mixing the right colors for specific jobs. There are chapters on printing of decalcomanias, characteristics of different surfaces, textile and wallpaper printing, appliqué materials, printing on cylindrical and unusual surfaces, silk screen as a fine art (serigraphy), die cutting and finishing, automation in the industry, and other topics. Completely serviceable to the commercial operator, the book also contains discussions of estimating procedures, relative costs and selling prices, and plant layout and shop management. The various steps in the process are all illustrated by numerous photographs and drawings. Other illustrations show modern plants and machines, presses and other equipment, and examples of printing on containers, glassware, fabrics, etc. In addition to a brief bibliography of books and publications on the subject, there is a list of major manufacturers and dealers in screen process materials for convenient reference. A fully practical manual, and for anyone working in the graphic arts, this book was written by an expert with over 25 years' experience in the field. As a man who has worked in every phase of silk screen work (from printing, paint mixing, layout, and lettering to managing, consulting, and teaching) and as the author of a number of other books on screen process, Mr. Biegeleisen is notably qualified to discuss all techniques, problems, and situations; in this book, he has produced the best and most authoritative guide to a rapidly growing field.







Unravelled Dreams


Book Description

Reveals how commodity failure, as much as success, can shed light on aspirations, environment, and economic life in colonial societies.




Spider Silk


Book Description

Spiders, objects of eternal human fascination, are found in many places: on the ground, in the air, and even under water. Leslie Brunetta and Catherine Craig have teamed up to produce a substantive yet entertaining book for anyone who has ever wondered, as a spider rappelled out of reach on a line of silk, “How do they do that?” The orb web, that iconic wheel-shaped web most of us associate with spiders, contains at least four different silk proteins, each performing a different function and all meshing together to create a fly-catching machine that has amazed and inspired humans through the ages. Brunetta and Craig tell the intriguing story of how spiders evolved over 400 million years to add new silks and new uses for silk to their survival “toolkit” and, in the telling, take readers far beyond the orb. The authors describe the trials and triumphs of spiders as they use silk to negotiate an ever-changing environment, and they show how natural selection acts at the genetic level and as individuals struggle for survival.