Ode to Silk

My honey and I spent a wonderful week and a half in Thailand & Cambodia this past April, and one of my secret hopes was that I would find someplace that recycled the remnants of the Thai silk into its own fiber, like they do with sari remnants. Alas, it was not to be. 

However, at the evening street market in Chaing Mai, I came across a stand selling silk cocoons as a skin care product. They also had a prop basket with different types of fiber made out of the silk. To my delight the proprieter spoke wonderful English and I asked if he had any spun fiber for sale. He didn't have any with him, but when I told him I was leaving the next day and wouldn't be able to visit their storefront, he offered to bring what he had to my hotel for me to see. How amazing is that??

The company is a Japanese/Thai collaboration called Silk Save the Earth http://www.sse-thailand.com/index.html and they mostly produce the silk for weaving. I, however, walked away with 8 skeins of beautiful, hand spun Thai Golden Silk for 2060 Baht, or roughly just under $70 USD - 2 undyed and 6 colored using natural dyes. I can't begin to tell you how excited I was to have found such a unique treasure. The general concensus was that only *I* could have gone halfway around the world and scored workable fiber in a place it wasn't readily available. I also received a rare invitation to visit their production facility, that I was heartbroken to have to decline. Now that I know, next time it will be on the itinerary!!

So this is was I got. Is it not drool inspiring??

     

The next step is finding the perfect knit lace shawl pattern to show it all off. Darn.. more surfing for yarn porn. >grin<

Bust that Stash

I've had these 2 skeins of Poof that were given to me as a gift. It's soft, yummy yarn, but it just would not *be* any of the things I tried to make it into. I'd try different scarf variations with different sized hooks or needles, to no avail. After wrestling with it for a couple of evenings, I would rip it out, wind it back up and toss it back into my stash. It would relentlessly work its way back to the top, waiting for that moment of when I would reach in for an interim project, and..  >>sigh<<

This weekend I decided it was either me or the Poof! Apparently it just wanted me to bring out my P hook and realize that I had other items in my stash that would marry up nicely. With a starting ch150 in Thick & Quick, some random switch outs to the other yarns and a whole bunch of sc later, an eternity scarf was made. It's 9" wide and 84" long before I seamed the ends together. I can cover my ears and still wrap it twice around my neck into a thick cowl and it's snuggy warm. 

There was enough T&Q left over to make a pair of gauntlets to match, which was fun, because I'd never made a pair before and I totally improvised. My favorite touch was slip stitching along the inside of the fingers end, which made them fit snugger around my fingers without making them too tight. The photo makes the T&Q look too olive to really go with the other colors, but in reality, it all blends together nicely. AND 6 skeins of yarn came to a lovely, yet practical end. Who could ask for more than that??

Blue-eyed Sweater..

I bought this great yarn (Araucania Ranco Multi) over the summer because it was the color of my daughter's eyes and I wanted to make her something warm and snuggy, made with mother's love. I also bought a pattern, which I quickly abandoned about 8" into the ribbing. So here I was with 1500 yards of sport weight yarn, and no real idea what to do with it. What's a knitter to do?? Surf, of course! It took weeks, but I finally found a pattern that I thought a 13yo wouldn't cringe at (yes, my beautiful model is only 13!) and that I could make with the yarn doubled up. I finally found the perfect pattern - the Grace Wrap Sweater - here: http://www.dailyknitter.com/grace.html. I still have some work to do on the neckline so it doesn't curl - do I crochet something, or pick up stitches around the lapels and neckline and do a few rows of garter stich like the hem and cuffs?? Decisions, decisions. Plus I also need to reset the left sleeve and maybe extend the length of the ties so it will tie at the side instead of in the back. I'm not real wild about how it looks with it tied in the back. But all in all, I think it turned out pretty darn good for my first attempt at a sweater. And I was right - the color matches her eyes exactly!!