While I used silk for years, and still do, I am taking the position that silk is not necessarily the best thread for pearls. My point being is that it is OK to explore threads other than silk. All threads , including silk have pluses and minuses.
I have found silk thread to knot pearls to often be an inferior choice because of many of its natural properties. The colors of silk threads are silk's strongest suit, in my book.
I find the stretchy tendency of silk - especially when the pearls are large or in ropes with weight- to be exasperating. In any case, the stretchy quality is a built in obsolescence- for the sake of the silk - not the pearls.
Silk frays with any kind of abrasion, it degrades with body secretions, and it soaks up sweat and oils as readily as it soaks up water.
As a beader who made her first necklace with seed beads and monfilimant fishing line- I have explored every thread available to beaders. I have used most of them, including artificial sinew to do projects. I even like wire for necklaces; I have used it a lot-- and I see it used on pearls all the time.
when I order finished pieces from China, I am surprised that they almost always use nylon thread of some kind, even though many claim it is silk. Yeah. like "Tahitian Black" is some kind of Tomfoolery.
Any way, I was one of the first to buy detulon; I had trouble with it kinking just before you pull it tight. It must be spun in the wrong direction for me.....or something.
So I just want to make the case that silk is not the only alternative for knotting; there are other alternatives that lack the stretchy and absorbent qualities of silk.
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It feels so plastic-y and horrible when I knot it.
