SnerKnits

So I spun up the homemade hankies last night and I've decided that if I ever do this again I need to invest in the proper equipment or it's just not worth it. Here are all the gory details (with pictures of course because that's just how we do things around here).

Here we have the dried hankies - they felt a little brittle - probably because I only had commercial fabric softener rather than the specific silk softener that www.wormspit.com suggested. I do have to admit that they look really pretty in a porny shot kinda way.

They came apart from each other just fine but it became clear as I was spinning them up that I hadn't soaked the cocoons long enough because there were still spots where the silk had not separated - they were unspinnable and became slubs.

There was nothing for it but to spin it anyways. I was dead on about the colour too. The colour was absolutely no where near as saturated as it had been on the cocoons.

Once I had spun them up and plied them back I maybe had 25yrds of yarn and I doubt that it's very usable. I just have to keep reminding myself that this was an experiment and that I had no intention of going into the silk business. The colours were actually nice and the shine was amazing but the in the end I think I'll go back to trying to find a cheap soruce of hankies so I don't have to pull out my hair. I'll leave you with two porny shots - one of the hankies before separating and spinning and one of the finished yarn.