Monday, March 12, 2007

All Silk, All The Time

Well, at least it seems so recently:

silk fiber

Silk dyeing occurs apace. These may be for classes, the next one being this May, in Ontario. I say may be because this is bleached tussah, something I've not used before, and, while it is dyeing up nicely, it is not as crisp and orderly as the usual bombyx. I'm going to have to spin some up, and try it out, such a hardship [back of hand pressed to forehead].

This one is bombyx:

Sarah's silk

A long delayed thank you gift, which has gone off in the mail. I think you can see the difference, on the surface at least: this is more orderly and crisp. I may be jousting at windmills here, only the spinning will tell.

And here we have the latest knitting:

peacock scarf

The Peacock shawl, in two ply silk, on US 0's. I'm through half of the rows here, and you can see by the ruler at about 10" deep, so it will be about 20" deep as a scarf. I'm finding knitting with the white very easy to see, even though the stitches are tiny. I will dye it a dark red once it's knitted; knitting a dark color would've been too hard on the old eyes that I somehow have in my face.

The pattern is good, easy to follow, no mistakes so far. I'm into the longer rows now though, up to chart 4, so the going will be slower from here on in. But May is months away, right? right? I know. These things tend to sneak up on us.

6 Comments:

Blogger margene said...

The colors of your silk are so bright and vibrant. I must learn to spin silk! (someday)

2:28 PM  
Blogger Spindlers2 said...

I have spun bleached tussah au naturel, and found it delightful; I can imagine that it would behave differently if dyed.

*Love* that red!

3:28 PM  
Blogger Birdsong said...

If it's color I want, I know to come to you! Lovely shawl as well... and I hate to say it, honey, but May is closer than it looks:)

6:18 PM  
Blogger Kim said...

I love the Peacock shawl. I can't imagine doing it on such tiny needles! It will be beautiful.

2:55 PM  
Blogger Sharon said...

Every time you blog about silk, I think - that's it. I'm going to spin silk on my next two bobbins. Then I choke because I run into my personal hurdle that I choke when I don't know what I'm spinning the yarn for. I have lots of silk, waiting for me to cross that barrier and just spin because. I actually brought some downstairs and it's sitting within three feet of my wheel.

10:22 PM  
Blogger Jackie said...

Oh-la-la! What a beautiful post! I need to get over my silk spinning preciousness like Sharon. But as a weaver, I KNOW what I'm doing with all of my hand spun. Weaving it of course!

6:26 AM  

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