Ode to Squishbel

Off the needles at last.

Ishbel by Ysolda Teague

Yarn: 54g of unpsun pure silk Mawata (silk hankies)

Ravelled here.

 

I am so in love with this shawl. I wish it was for me (I think I say that about all my knits!), but it was made for my Mum. I can’t remember how many repeats of the pattern I did, I pretty much just kept going until I got fed up!

I did think that this would have been bigger, but it’s still a fairly good size (26 inches from neck to tip, 52 inch wingspan).

As much as I love this, I completely failed to do it justice in the photographs. I’ve been putting off writing this FO post because it was really hard to get a decent picture of the whole thing. In the end I resorted to taking a ton of gratuitous macro shots and decided to put the post up anyway, perhaps I’ll have another go at taking better pictures on a day that isn’t completely overcast!

Silk is one of my absolute favourite fibres. I love the dichotomy of it: cool to the touch and yet unbelievably warm, so delicate and yet such a strong fibre.

I’m also completely obsessed with the lustre of it.

Squishbel blocked out a lot better than I thought. This is the first time I’ve knit with pure silk, and my google-fu told me that as strong as dry silk is, wet silk is a whole lot weaker, so I was very wary of overblocking and breaking stitches. Especially since I’d  drafted some of this silk a little too thinly in places.

I love the rustic charm of the thick & thin stitches.

I needn’t have worried too much. Either silk is stronger than I’d thought (and it is really strong – perhaps my technique is way off, but I built up a couple of little calluses on two of my fingers from trying to draft out the silk) or I managed to be slightly less cack handed than usual with my blocking, because it went without a hitch and blocked beautifully.

It did lose a little bit of its squooshy-ness after blocking but washing it really brought the lustre out. It also has the most amazing drape.

It might be a while before I want to knit another Ishbel, but I’m definitely looking forward to knitting with pure silk again. I think an obsession with mawatas has well and truly been born!

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