Off the Needles: Knitted Silk Shawlette

Here's another project using yarn I bought at this year's Carolina Fiber Fest. I love the feel of silk when wearing the scarf I knitted with silk yarn I bought in Vancouver, so I was on the lookout for more silk yarn while shopping. I discovered a lot of yarn that blended silk with wool and other fibers, but finding pure silk was a challenge. The yarns in this project are both 100% fair trade silk yarn from Sheepish Creations. The black yarn was a skein of 214 yards of single ply silk, and the turquoise was 114 yards with tiny sequins threaded throughout the skein. 

The pattern was super simple: I cast on 150 stitches with the turquoise using the picot cast on method. I knitted in garter stitch until I ran out of yarn and then switched to the black yarn and knitted until I ran out of that yarn. I cast off using the I-cord cast off method. I love this cast off for shawls as it gives a very nice edge that holds it shape. The final piece is approximately 10 inches/26 cm high and 37 inches/94 cm wide.

 Because of the texture of the black yarn, I stayed with garter stitch rather than knitting in a fancier stitch. Also, when wearing the piece, the black scrunches up and becomes a background for the turquoise so any lacy stitch would be lost in the folds.

While both yarns are thicker than the yarn in my silk scarf, they still drape nicely and feel great against my neck. The silk provides enough warmth without the itchiness that I sometimes feel with wool. I think I'll find this perfect for those cooler days when just a bit of neck coverage is needed.