Thursday, March 6, 2008

Knitting with Stainless Steel?

My friend Susan was away in Chicago for a week, and brought a gift from a lovely yarnshop she found. It is a scarf kit from Habu textiles. I have never seen anything like this. It consists of two incredibly fine laceweight yarns that are knit together on relatively large needles(very lacey). That in itself is not unusual. The thing that had my jaw on the table is one of the yarns is Silk Stainless Steel..... Yes. 69% silk, 31% stainless steel. I checked out the website, and they said the fibre has been used to make a fine mess for oil filters! But they decided it would be more fun to wrap silk around it and use it for knitting and weaving. The end fabric can be twisted and it will hold its shape until you pull it smooth again.




I started a swatch to see how it handles and it takes a bit to get used to the lack of stretch in the steel, so you need to move loosely, but already I can see the way it can be molded.




It is Kit78, Kushu Kushu - merino and silk stainless steel scarf from Habu, if you want to find one yourself. Mine is colour 29, coffee.




Here are my finished socks. And I have started a Superwash Bamboo button front vest, my next pattern soon to be posted.

3 comments:

sweetp said...

Oh my gosh, stainless steel yarn! Will be interested to see how it knits up for you and your FO :)

chris said...

I find I have to knit a bit carefully. (SLOW) It easily slips off the needle (no clingy stretch) so I also have to PAY ATTENTION. These two things aren't my best knitting attributes. So the plan is concentrate for an hour a day on this, then move on to other projects.
Chris

MonkeyGurrrrrl said...

I seen it, petted it, but have yet to purchase it. I love Habu, but they're a bit spendy for my budget. It looks really lovely, tho, and way better suited to SoCal weather (and mentality) than wool. Hmmm. Now I'm thinking chainmail...