Spindle spinning silk hankies / mawatas

One of my many purchases from Wonderwool Wales 2018 was this beautiful silk from Sealy MacWheely. I only bought a small pack but it goes a long way, Sealy had a scarf on display made from one of these packs.

The silk is in the form of hankies / mawata. You separate the thin layers (each made from a single cocoon, which in turn is in theory a single strand), poke a hole in the middle of the hanky, streeeeeetch it out almost to the thickness you need and add twist. I've long wanted to try stretching and then knitting / crocheting without adding twist, which does work.

In this case I did spin it, and then navajo plied (my first go at n-plying with a spindle, I think). The picture isn't great. It looks a bit neater in real life than in this picture.

If you're interested in trying this, here's Sealy's own video showing everything I've just said.

Review: Spin + Knit 2017, a Spin-Off special issue

Although it's a year or two old now, I learned about this collection of patterns via Kate Larson's blog post about her visit to Shetland, which is a good read.

During that visit she bought a pack of Shetland wool in various shades, which she spun and made into the North Road hat, her own design. The hat is featured on the cover.

I don't generally buy pattern books but I have a few. Usually there are only a few patterns in each that I would actually make and only one or two that I end up making. But it's unusual to find a collection of designs specifically for spin and knit and as usual there were a few that I could see myself making. I almost always spin for a project.

The print edition is sold out, but the digital edition is available. However, it's $14.99 which seems very pricey.

It contains 20 patterns and a number of articles. You can see all of the patterns here. There are hats, mitts, scarves, cowls and shawls. They tend to be smaller projects, which you'd expect in a handspinning collection, but there are a couple of bigger projects too, a colourwork bag and a cardy. I really like the Basketcase Cardigan and it's one of the projects that I have firm plans for.

It has 120 pages and the articles that accompany that patterns are well-chosen for a spinner/knitter. Or maybe even a knitter who's curious about spinning, because there's a good 'Spinning Basics' article by Maggie Casey. There's plenty for the more experienced too including several 'How to's and a long run-down of sheep breeds.

Here's the link to Kate's blog post once again, and here's the link to buy the digital issue.