Merino and Silk

You may have noticed in my last post that I had a little spinning on the wheel.

This is a white merino/silk blend from Knit Picks.

It starts out like this.

It unravels into a long strand of roving, which I seperate into pieces, like this:

Silk has a really long staple length and is pretty slippery, so I have been "spinning from the fold."  I started doing this accidentally before I knew it was a real thing.  But you basically fold your piece of fiber in half,

And let the fiber draft from the fold rather than from the end.  It seem less likely to draft too quickly/get too thin.

I've been practicing "long-draw" drafting where you control the amount of twist with your front hand while drawing the fiber out with your back hand.  This lady does a really good demonstration of what I'm trying to accomplish.

She is a lot better at it than I am, but I'm getting better.

I am also spinning this purple silk/merino I got from the MD Sheep and Wool Festival last year. 

I am sad I didn't get to go this year, so I am celebrating from afar.

I plan to ply the two together when I'm done.

Adventures in Silk

I showed you the mawata (also known as silk hankies) I got from Stitches South a couple of weeks ago.  Essentially they are square, thin layers of silk.  I decide to knit mine without spinning them first.

I had four different colors of hankies, each without about 15-20 layers.

This is what a single hankie looks like.

I gently stripped off each layer of silk.

The layers are very thin (see the layer on the left).  You can see right through them.

I poked a whole in the center of the layer and started stretching them into a thin loop.

When the loop was the thickness of about a worsted weight yarn, I broke it to make just one long line of silk.  Silk as very long and very strong fibers.

I rolled the strands up into a little multi-colored ball.  It is alarming how small the ball is, but if I did the math right, it should be enough for a pair of adult mittens ( I hope...)

Here is what I started to knit.

Pretty colors, yes?

This was a very fun if slightly frustrating project at first.  You have to keep your hands really smooth and moisturized or the silk catches on them:

My picture is sideways  but you get the point.  Sticky fibers.

I sent some silk hankies to Porpoise as well.  She said she is going to spin hers, so it will be interesting to see the differences in the way they knit up.