What's Mawata with ME? What's Mawata with YOU?

The hankies I'm using now: 1.2 oz from The Painted Tiger again

While watching Wednesday Night TV, (I live such a wild life) I started working a little bit on another color and different technique with these silk hankie/mawatas. I pulled these a lot thicker, switched to a size 8 needle, and decided to see just how far I could take this silk.

My new experiment

Now, a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away there lived a guy named Luke. Oops I digress, it's all the TV tonight. Anyway, a long time ago, I know that the Chinese have long used silk threads for embroidery and tapestry. Silk is much stronger than you would think. So I decided to do a drop stitch scarf. It's turning out really well.

Silk Wars

I would think, someone could get really good with this and actually do really beautiful lacework. The problem, is that silk sticks to everything and pulls out. Once I get this scarf completed, I'm going to do a few tests with this and see how badly it fuzzes out. But soo pretty.

My new Mawata hints:

• Addi Turbos were working better with this than the bamboo needles I'm using now, the turbos make picking up the stitches a little easier. 
• Again, remember, don't over draft, you can always draft more later.
• Cats and mawatas don't mix. Long story here, not worth going into.
• I am still having problems with my stitch definition, I am really just blaming my mediocre knitting skills for that one.

And finally, did anyone else watch Survivor, Redemption Island? Living alone is hard, will be interesting to see how that works out.. Good knitting TV for the next few months.

Trending Now

In the knitting world is knitting with silk hankies or mawatas. You see, The Yarn Harlot posted on this technique a little while ago, and the entire knitting world started to search mawatas. Now, being more of a spinner than a knitter, I already had a source for mawatas, and even kind of understood the technique. So I quickly snapped up some from my enabling dealer The Painter Tiger who had dyed some to keep up with all trends. Brooke dyes things in the most amazing, wonderful, spectacular colors, and these are no exception. I should add, of course this fit under YARN purchases, therefore still not interfering in my fiber fast till May thing. Clearly this is yarn, that could just be multipurposed into fiber.

My pile o' hankies :)

So I've been playing with this a little bit and so far here are my notes:

A few rows of knitting

• Err on the side of larger when you pull these apart, it will draft more as you knit, leaving you with a finer yarn.
• Silk is very strong, don't worry about it breaking, but it sticks to everything. Be prepared. As I type, there is a lone silk strand floating.
• This is process knitting to the extreme - no hurrying this project. It's gonna be a long time till anything is really made - at least for me - others are probably faster.



I am aiming for a loose airy scarf here, no neat and tidy for this one.

• Silk is so amazing for taking color, there is nothing quite like working with hand dyed silk.

The end of one night and 2 layers. It's about 4 inches long.

 The Painted Tiger still has some beautiful hankies available, I resisted my impulse to buy them all. But I'd hurry - my self control is not generally noted.