Okay Spinners, if you haven’t played with silk hankies yet, I have to recommend the adventure!
Facing a stack of sheer , filmy silk hankies is such a fun and rewarding spinning diversion. Once you’ve created the sleek shininess that is silk yarn, you’ll have a whole new definition of luxury.
The singles shine so impressively, that it’s difficult to believe how quickly and easily they’re spun up.
The process is amazingly simple and straight-forward. Pick up a hankie and poke a hole in the middle with your fingers, pulling outward.
Draft the hankie into a long loop. You’ll notice that you have to keep your hands pretty far apart, since silk has such a long staple. I go round and round, drafting different areas until I’m satisfied that it’s as even as possible. You can’t draft silk “on the fly” like you do with wool fiber. The smallest amount of twist locks it up tight, so get it where you want it before you set your spindle in motion. Once you’re satisfied go ahead and break the loop.
I’m spinning these hankies up for a knitter friend that dyed them, so I decided to take the time to make a couple of sample skeins to see if I’d get better results as singles or as two-ply. After finishing, I’ve come to the conclusion that I like the two-ply better. It seems more fluid and drapey, less stiff. I learned that silk should be washed in an acidic cleaner, such as Soak. Alkaline soaps will change the quality of the silk.
I’ve found that silk hankies do tend to have thicker and thinner areas – they aren’t quite as easy to keep even as tussah silk. If you can forgive the little inconsistencies and let go of your inner perfectionist, I predict you’ll be positively enchanted!
What a lovely tutorial. I started spinning with hand spinning silk hankies and have enjoyed it so much that I never migrated to the wheel with them. Your post, however, taught me some important new information about washing. Thanks! And BTW, gorgeous color and spin job!!!
Thanks Jan! Isn’t the color amazing? I can’t take credit for that – a knitter friend of mine dyed them, so I’m spinning them up for her, (in exchange for a bunch of other fiber!) It’s been a fun experience.
I’ve heard of these before, but never come across them at any of my local yarn shops. Where do you get the silk hankies?
Thanks!
A knitter friend of mine sent them to me to spin in exchange for other fibers. However, I’ve seen them for sale online at places that sell other fibers. My local yarn store that also sells fiber has some from time to time. I’d recommend you search etsy. I know I’ve seen them there.
I’ve never done any spinning before but would love
to try it. Your tutorial was very interesting.
Cheers, Anita.
It’s really fun, and terribly addicting, Anita. Just warning you. 😉
Thank you for the great tutorial! I just finished listening to Episode 24 of a podcast from yarnspinnerstales.com which is on dyeing and spinning silk. I’ve never spun with silk but this podcast, along with your wonderful tutorial, definitely have me interested in giving it a try. If I can spin down some of my fiber stash, I’m going to check out Etsy for both silk hankies and silk top. I enjoy both the process and the result of spinning and find myself wanting to try new fibers.
Oh! Thanks for reminding me of those podcasts, Tammie. I went to re-listen and noticed episode 31 had some silk info too. Yay!
I’ve seen these. I heard you can knit directly off of them ( I don’t spin) since you played with them – how hard do you think that would be?
Ria,
I’ve tried the knitting the drafted hankies and very easy. Almost too easy. I got bored and decided I liked spinning too much to skip that step. But you could follow the directions in the blog post above through the next-to-last photo and do it. Here is also a YouTube video about it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stSgvbrcygA
I would only add that I have rough hands, but don’t feel I need to exfoliate them to draft the fiber. I don’t think I’d like to let the cat sit on the hankies either!
Enjoy!
I have rough hands, too, and I’m weird enough that I don’t mind the silk sticking to my hands, haha.. just pull it off & keep going… I haven’t spun much with silk yet, just a few yards on a turkish spindle … need to learn a bit more about how to spin silk…how thin, how much twist, etc…
Then silk is your fiber Jessica! I noticed it had more of the silky luster when spun with plenty of twist!
It wouldn’t be hard at all, Ria. You’d just draft them out, break the loop and get to knittin’!