As I said in the previous post, the cords then go on to the clothing manufacturers, but they can be obtained out in the open market, too – this glorious riot of colour caught my eye as we were headed towards the tentmakers. Heaps of the hanks we had seen being spun were stacked on the shelf in this little shop.

The shopkeeper here is reaching for garlands of what look like beads, but they are the silk covered forms that act as buttons on the gebalayas, matching the trim around the neck usually and they must wear pretty well, although I note one or two in the pic below are fraying. Since the stranded silk the spinners twist together is imported now from Japan, I imagine these little bobbles are, too. The shopkeeper was rather amazed that I wanted to buy some, but how could I resist? I have no idea what I will do with them but no matter – they are beautiful. Jenny said she’d not seen them before except actually in use on garments.

After our visit to one of the bead shops I did think of interspersing them into a bead necklace or something, they’d look great, but as Jenny pointed out they just might fray fast between glass beads especially. I might risk it sometime though.