It’s a tricky business, I found.

I never knitted with 100% silk yarn before. Of course, I made my very first cardigan design with wool-silk blend yarn. It was a splendid experience. I loved the yarn so much that I made many more sweaters with silk blend yarn since.

When I grabbed 100% silk yarn in my hand, I thought, “Would it be similar to other yarn? Just look at the sheen the yarn emanating! Of course, it won’t have the bounce wool fibre normally has. Awww but it will be satisfyingly drapery!”

A long ago I purchased this yarn - Jaipur Peace by BC Garn. It took me a long time to decide to buy them. If you were like me, you would have the kind of yarn that you perceive as more precious than others. This is not particularly more expensive than other novelty yarn. It’s 300m per 50g with a similar price tag with another fingering/lace yarn. The yardage is great. With only two skeins of yarn, I can make a small-sized tank top (which I’m planning to do with it now). But it is such a lightweight and small skein that I feel like I’m paying loads. I touched it and drooled over it. Then, I walked away. I browsed the shop more touching other stuff more. And then, I came back to it and touched and drooled over more. I don’t know how many times I repeated this silly routine until I finally decided to buy. And the silly routine continues at home. Whenever I opened the drawer, I touched it and appreciated it but couldn’t decide what to do with it.

The summer has come, hasn’t it? (I cannot believe it’s the end of June already. Where’s the half of 2024 gone?) My husband and I booked a holiday in a place sunny. We need sunshine. I live in Ireland. The weather is pretty much the same throughout 12 months with wind and rain. We would have a bit of sunshine for a few days here and there if we are lucky. What I want to tell you is that I don’t have summer clothes. I do have short-sleeved T-shirts etc., of course. What I mean is that I don’t have fancy summer clothes. Will this be the chance to use my precious silk yarn?

‘Chrysler top’ is my choice for this yarn. I bought “Knitting for Olive” pattern book after watching one of Fruity Knitting's episodes featuring them. It’s a fabulous book by the way. I spotted a gorgeous tank top made with 100% silk. A perfect choice for my holiday garment, I think. (I would like to change the neckline, though. A deep V-neckline won’t do any good for me. My neck is too scrawny. I’m thinking of a halter neckline. Hope I can make it work.)

Anyway, with 100% silk yarn, the problem I would have, I thought, was silkiness. I thought it would be slippery and I would need wooden needles to work with. I don’t want to have missed stitches here and there.” But I found it wrong. It wasn’t slippery at all. The stitches are bunched up at the end of the left needle. Those stitches won’t glide up to the needle from the thin wire of a circular needle. I found it very interesting that 100% silk yarn is a sort of sticky. (Come to think of it now, it might have to be due to silk’s non-stretchy tendency.)

I don’t have uber-sensitive fingers unlike some of my friends. Some knitters have strong preferences. One of my friends cannot handle slippery yarn such as alpaca. She mourns about it until she finishes her project or leaves it as a WIP. Another friend is the opposite. She cannot handle the sticky yarn. So she won’t knit with any “rustic yarn”. These two are especially picky friends. But Me? I can knit with almost any kind of yarn including Jute. However, when your expectations are higher than or merely different from reality, an emotion called “disappointment” plays a big role. Now I have this feeling - annoyance and reluctance mixed up together whenever I pull the bunched-up stitches onto the needle. That is not enjoyable. I’m getting to understand my picky friends, sort of.

Working with silk yarn, it’s a tricky business for me. It’s like a life, isn’t it? Living a life is a tricky business. More often than not, I found the things happening in my life that were not as I expected. There is often a catch. And I have the exact same feeling as the bunched-up stitches on my needle when I have an unexpected turn or a disappointment in my life. I’m not quite sure how I have dealt with them so far. Win some lose some, I guess. I just hope that I’m growing my flexibility and resilience whenever I encounter those.

I’ll knit with silk yarn just fine. Because now I know what to expect.

The Rambling House: Working with silk yarn.