Spinning Silk + Knitting, Weaving, Crochet, and Embroidery Projects Using Silk Fiber

Silk is one of the luxury fibers that new spinners are likely to try first after they've mastered wool—it is so seductively beautiful with its incredible luster and ability to take color. But spinning silk is a little trickier than spinning wool, and it is really nice to have a couple (or three!) expert spinners by your side as you try it out. We bundled up four articles about spinning silk for weaving, knitting, crocheting, and embroidering plus projects to try to get you started. Inside you'll find:

• Spinning Silk for Knitting - Carol Huebscher Rhoades shares her experience with silk, and how it inspired her to create a pattern for a useful item that was easy and quick to make. After some sampling with a beautifully dyed brick of bombyx silk, Carol decided that a cap would display the lace pattern she desired to use nicely and make a fairly easy project.

• Spinning Silk for Weaving - The most daunting aspect of this project might also be the most appealing aspect of the silk brick: those beautiful bright colors! Explore the joys of weaving with your handspun silk in this beautiful project for weaving fabric from silk fiber.

• Spinning Silk for Crochet - Learn about Navajo-plying (making a three-ply yarn by chaining a single strand of yarn from one bobbin) and the techniques used to crochet a bead rope bracelet or necklace from bombyx or tussah silk.

• Spinning Silk for Embroidery - Even if you haven’t spun silk previously, you can, with a little time and effort, produce a variety of threads for sampling stitches. Then try a fun, simple embroidery project that requires a small amount of handspun embroidery thread. Dress up a garment or small handmade item with a little bit of handspun silk embroidery thread.

• Making Silk Yarn without Spinning - Even without spinning or reeling, you can enjoy the process of making silk yarn. See “Working with Mawata” for information on working with this preparation, then practice pulling silk into unspun yarn. This simple pattern shows off the sheen and softness of the fiber; pull the mawata very thin for a lacier effect.