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Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Feast Your Eyes...

...on this silken glory:
















This arrived a while back from an eBay seller who is divesting the last remnants of the silk yarn that Scalamandre (the legendary furnishing fabric company in New York) sold off when they closed their mill.

It's a 3-ply yarn, and according to my McMorran Balance, it has 2900-ish yards per pound which makes it exactly ... 11.6/2. Or 2/11.6 if you prefer that format. Based on the tight twist, I suspect it was used by their passamenterie department, as it's a lot heavier than their drapery or upholstery yarns. It would also be gorgeous for marudai/takadai braids (though not in my lifetime - too many other things on the agenda at higher priority). However, if you happen to be a braider, get in touch - I might be willing to wind off some miniskeins - there's a lot of this stuff!

I've also bought, just today, several more lots of Scalamandre yarn, this time mixed colors of their luscious silk tramm. I think the tramm is about the same size as 60/2, but of course it isn't twisted nor  plied so it behaves a little differently.

I've got some ideas about combining stripes of tramm with a few strands of the 3-ply interspersed among/between the stripes.

Considering that plain, ordinary silk from China is selling around $100/pound from the usual yarn purveyors in the States, top quality yarn from Scalamandre at $60/pound seems pretty reasonable.

Okay, grab a hankie. Now, go ahead and drool!

4 comments:

Laura Fry said...

Yum. Can't beat silk. :)

Alice said...

What a treasure. Good catch! I know you will do great things with this.

Tony Cat said...

I could go for a few miniskeins of the heavier silk. Here is my e-mail: martser45@msn.com
Could you let me know a little more info re color, what size mini skeins ...
thanks

neki desu said...

wiping dry my compouter table.