Tuesday, August 18, 2009

You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear...

...but you can make silk yarn from a silk hankie:

That's one 1/2 ounce stack of silk hankies that I bought at Sock Summit and started spinning on the spot. Today I finished spinning and plying, washed it, and hung it up to dry with the spindle as a weight to help set the twist.

Out of that 1/2 ounce I got about 125 yards of what I think is about laceweight, though the thickness varies quite a bit. What doesn't show in this shot is the marled colors, since the original hanky was dyed pink and purple.

Knitty has a great tutorial on spinning silk hankies. The hankies and spindle I bought at Sock Summit came from Royal Hare. Woodland Woolworks carries 1 ounce hankies, both pre-dyed and undyed.

Now to figure out what to make from the fiber. I'm thinking it might be just enough for a lacy triangular scarf.

2 comments:

Sarah {The Student Knitter} said...

wow! I have no idea how you make yarn from silk hankies, but I'm clicking over right away to find out! Great job!

lunaticraft said...

Woah, that's pretty impressive. The yarn is beautiful, btw.

 

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