silk purse | Exchanging Fire

Hester made me a shawl in 2008, and along with it she gave me the remnants of the Alchemy Silk Purse she used, about 40 yards. I’ve not known what to do with it until now. The first ruched sleep mask I made was out of cotton, and I like the idea of a fanciful silk one as well. Based on how much worsted yarn it took to make my other prototypes, I wanted to attempt a DK weight and see what the difference would be. I knit this yesterday, and, as usual, it worked up quite fast. This yarn seems more like a heavy fingering or sport weight than a DK weight yarn, so I had to knit it on size 4 needles! Shoot me now. I cast on 23 stitches, and surprised myself by only using 22 yards! However, this yarn proved to me that the mask really does have to be knit with worsted weight yarn. I had hoped that a DK weight yarn would make for an even lighter, fluffier mask, but the DK is just too thin for filling in all of those holes between the stitches and its limp as well. It’s meshy even when knit tightly. Since I had the extra yardage, I decided to make up a backing. I cast on 19 stitches, knitting it flat, and used up about 17 yards of yarn. I’m going to alter this backing and add it to my final design as an “extra” element. It’s gorgeous, but not really as useful as my last eye mask. It’ll be a nice eye pillow.