Hand-dyed Silk Hankies

The dyed silk hanky photos are ready for listing in the etsy shop. I know this probably looks like a mish-mash of color - it's 20 of the 22 colorways. There approximately 1 ounce of each which spun thread thin will yield a tremendous amount of yarn.

My favorite method for spinning a hanky is to pull off one very thin layer (one cocoon's worth), punch a hole in the center with my finger and then start pulling it out into a large circle eventually breaking it at one end - so what's left is a long length of silk roving ready to spin. In spinning I make sure I hold my hands far apart as the silk fibers are very long and strong. It will want to spin thread thin on it's own.

Oh, just had a thought, some may not know what a silk hanky is. A silk cocoon is degummed and stretched over a square frame with one nail in each corner which is where the hanky shape comes from. Many of these cocoons are layered on top of one another. Usually the hankies are a pretty nice square like some of those above, but my last order of them were pretty weird shaped, not so pretty but will spin just the same. This same process may be done on a form similiar to a hat form which creates what are called silk caps.

Back to the dye pots.....

I'm finally back to the dye pots and my body is feeling it from standing on concrete all day. I forgot how long it takes to dye silk hankies, you wouldn't think 1 1/2 pounds of them would take very long to dye since I regularly dye 10 pounds of roving in a day and have dyed up to 20 pounds in a day. Hopefully they'll be dry shortly so I can go collect them, the wind is picking up and being so light they'll be all over the place if I leave them out there much longer. Tomorrow I'll be dyeing some merino/tussah roving. Then I'll be watching the temps to see when the next dye day is.

Dyeing......now dead tired.......

You'd think dyeing only 3 pounds of merino/tencel and a pound of silk hankies would be an easier dye day. Not so, it took just as long as if I had dyed 10 pounds of roving. Love all the color today.

Here's what yesterday's dyeing of the merino/tussah silk looks like dried, braided and ready for sale. I love the sheen in this roving and these colorways, approximately 2 pounds of each color that will be showing up over the next several days in my etsy shop.

Was originially thinking I'd dye again tomorrow, think I need to take the day off, it's still supposed to be on the cooler side Monday so will get back to dyeing then. Tomorrow will get the merino/bamboo braided and weighed and all the silk hankies packaged and weighed.......and weigh out the next 10 pounds of fiber to be dyed.