Silk Thread
I had a wonderful time on Saturday shopping at my local fiber store. Thanks to my awesome husband I got a lot of nice new fibers to try. One of them I chose specifically for the Spindlers group challenge on Ravelry, so I had to start spinning it right away. This is some beautiful hand-dyed silk cap that I thought perfectly fit the theme “Stirrings of Spring”.
If ever you have been told by your fiber or spindle just what you are going to spin, then you will know what it was like for me to start this “yarn”. I pulled out all my available spindles, which were all fairly light weight. I like spinning lace so this was fine with me, but I was not intending to spin quite as fine a yarn as I got. I tell you, as I was drafting out these long silk fibers I felt almost as if the spindle and silk were conspiring against me to do as they wanted. I thought to myself that even if I were to ply this thin-beyond-laceweight yarn it would be too thin to consider knitting. I like lace but geeze!
Another thing that makes this yarn unique is that it’s a very low twist despite being so fine. The fibers are so incredibly long (6″ and up, you can imagine how far apart my hands need to be to draft it) so they hold together very easily. This is perfect for embroidery thread, because I won’t have to ply and it will retain much of its sheen. It’s a very unique spinning process, I must say.
I’ve done some embroidery in my time, and in fact embroidery was my craft of choice for a good year before I decided to learn how to knit. I don’t like it as much as knitting as it doesn’t have that same meditative quality. However, it does satisfy my need to create, and I can get a bit more artistic with it than with knitting or spinning. It was decided then; this “yarn” that I was spinning officially became thread.
I’ve completed what seem like one or two layers of silk cap into what you see above. I leared my lesson with this first length of thread, and taped a tube of cardstock to the shaft of the spindle before starting the second batch. Winding all that thread onto a more manageable cardstock bobbin took forever, and I wasn’t planning to do it again.
I’ve been plotting, and scheming, and thinking about what I’m going to embroider with it. I’m thinking a mostly monochrome piece with some leaves and stems. I have some nice even weave linen that’s easy to embroider on, and we could use another decoration for the wall. Hopefully I can get some pictures up of my embroidery doodles as I tested out this thread. It works great! There is lots of shine with just a hint of texture.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Wow, that is stunning! You’ve become quite the expert spinner these days. I did a bit of embroidery in my pre-knitting days as well but I don’t think I’ll ever go back to it now that I knit. But I think you have quite a bit more creative artistry in you than I do so I can see how it suits you.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Yeah I like making stuff that’s for sure
My only problem is my impatience to finish things, which is why knitting is great because it allows me to forget about that.