Description
I love the saturated red in this stack of hand dyed silk hankies. The yellow is super bright, contrasting wonderfully with the more subtle pink, which then leads to a deep burgundy red. These colours play so well together!
There’s a total of 10.2g of silk hankies for you to play with. I’ve kept each stack small to make it more affordable and easier to sample if you’ve not yet tried this little silky wonder.
What are silk hankies?
Silk hankies are degummed silk worm’s cocoons that have been stretched into a square shape. They consist of multiple, very thin layers, each harvested from a single cocoon.
Mawata is their original Japanese name, and it means “to spread around.” They are also known as mulberry silk hankies.
Silk takes up colour like nothing else, so the saturation will work great to bring your spinning or wet felting projects to the next level. Silk hankies are quite shiny so they definitely won’t go unnoticed.
How can I use a silk hankie?
- Find a corner of the hankie and peel off a layer. Each layer is very thin and cobweb-like. Moisturise your hands before so the silk doesn’t get stuck to your fingers!
- For spinning or knitting: make a hole in the centre with your fingers and draft the fibres apart until you reach the thickness you’d like to work with (watch the video below). Break off one end so you’ll have a roving of sorts, then carefully wrap it around your hand to form a nest. Spin away, or knit as you would any yarn.
- For wet felting (nuno felting): add one or more thin layers to your other fibres for a cobweb effect. The silk will gradually embed with the rest as you felt.
Please note that the last picture shows a stack of several colourways of silk hankies. This listing is only for one of them.