Silk Hankies

So I found out quite by accident something that has intrigued me to the point of reading and finding out its history in the fiber world -- silk. I guess my interest was piqued when I went to the Alabama Fibers Arts Festival a month or so ago with my sisters. I purchased some sari remnants.  After that I was on a mission. I have read, watched videos and made an additional purchase. My recent purchase -- silk hankies. Yes hankies. Not like the cotton-type put in your handbag or you embroider with pretty designs, but squares made from individual cocoons that have been processed, stretched over frames and then dyed.

The processing and laying out of the hankies one on top of the other renders what looks like not much fiber, but when you start pulling the individual layers from the center the magic begins. What didn't look like much silk to begin with rendered this amount of silk to knit with:

A total of 22 cocoons made this much silk. I did not spin the silk, but opted to pull the fibers (really long fiber length) and will knit with it this way which will do just fine. I have three more packets to pull.

The silk fiber was purchased from See Jayne Knit. She has an ETSY shop and sells some of her hand dyed silk hankies there along with information on the amount of silk you can get from the hankies and expected estimated yardage. The color of my purchase is Monet.

I will knit something special as a gift and will post end results later.

Happy knitting....

Snowbird!