Harvesting

Sometimes projects just don’t work as anticipated…I’ve had some mawata languishing in my stash for a while – I wasn’t sure what to do with them but then I remembered that the Yarn Harlot had knit up some fantastic mittens out of some mawata.  Since I had only about 11g of silk to work with, I figured I’d make some mawata mitts for myself – but mine would just be simple fingerless mitts instead of full out mittens.  The starting and the knitting went well enough, but I was getting rather frustrated with the drafting – my hands aren’t the smoothest skinned, and the silk kept snagging and catching on my fingers and driving me nutty. I eventually put the poor project into hibernation and as the new year approached, I decided to harvest out my needles and simply finish off the hankies by turning it into actual yarn.

Mawata, also known as silk hankies, are actually silk cocoons that have been degummed and then stretched over a frame to form a square shape.  Spinning mawata is actually quite straight forward and is easiest done by completely pre-prepping the mawata for spinning.  Not one to follow rules (or make things easiest on myself apparently) I opted to just get each mawata started and then finishing drafting right at my wheel.  This worked out fine, though the silk is incredibly strong.  My delicate computer-jockey fingers were no match for the silk as I tried stretching and drafting each mawata out while spinning the yarn at the same time.  Apparently the way I was handling the fibers while drafting resulted in my developing a blister that wrapped around my first knuckle on my middle finger of my primary drafting/twist control hand!

Because of its strength, it is incredibly easy to spin the silk quite fine – it may be a bit slubby or uneven, but I suspect with more practice (or again, if I took the time to completely predraft before adding twist) I could make an even more evenly spun yarn.  Other than its strength, I did notice that silk seems to have an odor all its own.  I noticed it especially while drafting out the fibers for spinning.  It also has an amazing sheen once spun.

After spinning the singles, I decided to wind it into an andean plying bracelet to turn it into a two-ply and hopefully even out the slubs a bit.  I managed to transform my 11g of mawata into approximately 65 yards of yarn that is somewhere between lace and fine fingering weight.  While I don’t have exact plans for it just yet, I think it would make for some very nice accents in a weaving project.  I’d love to use it as warp, but when I think about the loom waste, it makes me a little ill, though I suppose I could tie extenders to it to minimize the waste….I shall have to ponder it a bit more.  In the meantime, here it is all skeined up after its bath: