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!)

Progress

After the last post, I did want you to know that, thanks to YouTube, I'm progressing.  Woohoo, YouTube.  I remembered my friend, Jennie, saying that you had to use the 2 shuttles at once but I didn't remember if it was every pass, every couple of passes, every once in a while, everytime I think of you...Wait, I think that's a song.  Anyway, I tried a few things and then decided to find a vid because I was sure someone had posted a vid and viola!

Look, Ma, I'm weaving!

I would tell you more but I'm late for work so that will have to wait for the next post (with more pics).

But I did want to show you my finished "travel" pillow for bobbin lace, which I'm getting used to now and think it's going to work:

The pillow is in a self-contained box and the paraphenalia fits into the second box.  I've just got to rig a carrying case for the two and I'll be set.  I also need to sew a couple more fabric blocs but I'll add as I go along.  There's not much progress here but I do now have a section of the lace completed.  I've also got this going on.  I was told this tread was too thin for this size pricking but I already had the bobbins wound so I'm going to work the length with this tread.  It does for my purposes of practice anyway.

This is also a pillow I made.  Well, most of it is.  The part I'm working on was the pillow from my original Lacis kit.  Beginning steps but, oh so fun!