Flowers and Animals

“If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment.” — Georgia O’Keefe

It has been quite hot lately. I mean, here on the coast it’s been almost 80 or 81 a couple days and in the high 70s most days. That’s really hot for us. But the flowers seem to quite like it.

I am really enjoying knitting the Kai Shawl by Kristina Smiley. The motifs remind me of flowers separated by bands of stockinette or garter stitch. It’s easy enough that I can watch TV while I knit, but it’s pretty enough to keep me interested too.

This yarn is wonderful, as I mentioned before. The speckles of bright pink mixed with a light smattering of purple and blue floating over a sea of white is a perfect canvas for the flower motifs, which will show up better when I block it. I love the colors of Expression Fiber Arts yarn.

I never knit with yak and silk lace weight yarn before. I’ve knit with 100% yak and with 100% silk, but knitting with 50% each yak and silk is the best of both worlds. Both fibers are very soft, breathable and static resistant. Yak is also very absorbable as are all wools, and yak down is the ultimate in softness. 

Unfortunately, silk pupae are killed in the process of making the silk that their cocoons are formed from. However, many pupae are a snack food in China, South Korea and Thailand. I hadn’t really thought about all those little silk worm pupae dying, so probably in the future I’ll try to get tencel or bamboo to pair with my luxury fibers. (That’s assuming that I’ll be able to afford luxury fibers ever again.) But I am enjoying knitting this yak silk yarn to the utmost, and I will love wearing it!