silk hankies and spinning....

I did do quite a bit of stitching this week but cannot show it to you until next month. So I'm going to show you another experiment I did this week after reading about it online. I have a stack of white silk hankies. Silk hankies are piles of silk cocoons spread out on a square form and they are as light as a feather. I have used some in art pieces layered with other types of cloth but this week I tried spinning with them. Here is what I did:

click on the images for close-ups.

I peeled one very fine layer away from the stack...

I made a hole in the center with my fingers and started to spread it out:

I kept spreading it out from the center and then in sections when my arms could no longer reach....

 

I split it at some point and rolled it up loosely getting it ready to spin....

 

I used my tahkli spindle, which is used for cotton and fine threads, to spin it into a ball....

 

 

I repeated this whole process so that i had 2 balls of spun silk and then plyed them together. Plying means to join together by twisting in the opposite direction of the original spin....

I then tried knitting with it and made a small swatch....

 

I wish you could feel how soft it is.  My spinning is not that great so some stitches are fatter than others but I kind of like the irregularity.

This was just an experiment and I don't know where it will lead. I learned about it here. It's a short video demonstrating a silk hanky shawl being knitted with the silk roving. If you are interested in trying this, you can purchase silk hankies on etsy or ebay. I purchased mine on ebay several years ago. You can knit or crochet with the silk roving....that is, without the need to spin it. Spinning it gives it a finer look with less irregularity.

I have worked some on the Downton Abbey coat and managed to do one button hole after pulling the stitches out several times until I got it right. The next one will be easier.

Wishing you all a great weekend.