Warm Hands

Back in February, the Yarn Harlot had a post about knitting mittens from unspun silk hankies, also known as mawata.  I had heard about doing this before but seeing hers gave me that, "I could do that" sort of feeling and, being the possessor of mawata in the undyed format, I decided to truck along.

I got my mawata (have a look at her post because she's got a good explanation of silk and how it gets to be like this) and started drafting. 

I drafted more finely than she did.  That is, I took the hankie as you see it here, stuck my finger through the middle of it and pulled it out into a big circle.  Then I broke the circle open and drafted out until it looked like the strand at the top of this pic.

And I knitted, like she did, just my basic, everyday old mitten pattern until I ended up with these.

Hers were cushy, thick silk mittens.  Mine are thinner, not as cushy but every bit as warm (did you read how warm silk is?) and I made mine so they could be an inner mitten.  I'll have this lovely silk on the inside and wool on the outside. 

Definitely the best of both worlds.  (And it's still cold enough to wear them - unfortunately!)