Kiss My Knits!

I recently saw this page, which has a pdf telling how to make a gorgeous felted wool scarf using silk hankies as overlays. Silk hankies are individual cocoons of silk which have been spread out into a square. There are many sheets to the hanky, and you pull each one off separately to spin. Here’s a picture of some silk thread that I spun from a hanky.

I have several of these hankies, but frankly, when it comes to spinning, they kick my butt. So when I saw that project I thought this would be a good use for one that’s not quite as high quality. Plus I still have oodles of undyed wool. I sent out an e-mail about this project, and Turtlegirl76 came over to join in the fun on Sunday.

Step one. Lay out the hankies in the desired pattern. My hankies were these dull red ones I’d gotten from Spinner’s Ridge in Greensboro a while back. They’d had a lot of fiber pulled up and weren’t that smooth anymore. When you’re separating hankies from one another, they catch on any tiny patch of dry skin on your hands. They’re feather-light and thinner than paper. It was a challenge trying to separate these and lay them down. Here they are laid out on the bubble wrap which we’ll use to enclose them during the agitation phase of the project.

Next, wool is laid out. This is more of that gigantic box of undyed Romney that I got from a LJer a while back. The wool is laid out lengthwise, then it’s covered with another layer positioned crossways to the first.

Finally, another layer of silk hankies is added. We don’t want a one-sided scarf. I used every bit of the hanky – I think this particular hanky was a little light on actual silk.

The scarf is wetted, then rolled up in the bubble wrap around a core. Our core is a pool noodle from the Dollar Store, sliced into a manageable length. Then we secure it and start rolling it. And rolling it. And rolling it. It gets checked after about five minutes, then re-wrapped from the other end and rolled some more. Back and forth, back and forth. I think I wound up rolling it at least a half hour.

As I sat on the kitchen floor with Turtlegirl, the two of us on our knees, repetitively rolling our pool noodles back and forth on the floor, I felt oddly like I was in some foreign country, pounding grain for the evening meal. After about ten minutes, I was very grateful that I lived where I did with the luxuries that I take for granted. Like takeout.


Turtlegirl had to leave before we were completely done. However, I can tell you this: hers looked like a gorgeous, vibrant, colorful, fiery phoenix. Mine looked like… well… let me share this exchange.

Mr. Tvini: It looks like you had to clean up a spill.
Me: It looks like red blood cells traveling through a capillary.
Mr. Tvini: Yeah, that’s it. It looks like someone bled out and you had to clean it up.

Sadly, he’s right. I knew it wasn’t going to be a success the first time out, but I wasn’t expecting it to look like I’d had a run-in with PETA on the red carpet. Oh well.

Things I learned:

• I don’t like the way that undyed Romney looks felted. It looks unfinished in a way that I don’t like.
• Rolling pool noodles for long periods of time makes my shoulders ache the next day.
• When you’re working on a new technique, start small. I actually already knew this one, I just didn’t put it into practice.

It’s not a total loss. Unless someone out there wants “Scarf Bloody Scarf,” then I’ll use it to practice needle-felting. And I’m really looking forward to seeing what Turtlegirl’s looks like. On the pool noodle, it looked spectacular. Insert your own “really using your noodle” joke here.

I think this technique could be adapted well for a smaller rectangular piece, like a journal cover. I’m thinking, I’m thinking…