A Silk Purse...

…out of a silk yarn.

In 2006 I spun a cabled yarn with three of the four plies from bombyx silk top that had been dyed in blues and greens by Nancy Finn of Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks. The fourth ply was undyed Optim, a super-stretched Merino wool that feels quite silky. I entered this yarn in the “Spin a Grand Strand” skein exhibit at Convergence when it was held in Grand Rapids. The yarn reminded me of Michigan. And I think of Michigan as being rather like a very very large terrarium. So, that’s what I titled the yarn: “Terrarium”.

And it won first place.


I had always thought the yarn would be put to its best use as a crocheted bag. But I don’t crochet … unless I have to. My very good friend Becky McD, however, can crochet. And magnificently well. So, I asked her to crochet a bag for me out of the Terrarium yarn. She made two bags:


These are not the only bags she’s crocheted for me. See?


The larger bags were gifts containing bottles of Bushmills Irish Whiskey. Becky knows me very well….

The small white bag she crocheted from some yarn that I’d inherited from my dear friend CiCi Rock when she died in 2004. So the yarn is from one great friend, and the crocheting is from another great friend. I especially treasure this bag.

The small red bag isn’t really a bag at all. The yarn was some of my handspun; an experiment that I thought had not gone well. I was going to chuck the yarn, but Becky asked me to give it to her instead. Well, of course she could have it! A few years later, I was preparing to attend a fiber retreat at a location where alcohol was not allowed. Becky and I were in a grocery store and I found some wine in cute little juice-box-like containers. She suggested I take these with me to the retreat and just cover them up. And she crocheted a juice box cover for me so that I could camouflage my illicit “grape juice”. I must say that I rather liked the yarn after she’d made this bag for me. Not so much of a failed experiment after all!