Fashion Silk is a "caged" yarn composed of 85% silk 15% nylon. The picture at right tries to capture the construction of the yarn by unraveling a little section at the end, but you can't really see it very well. There is a core of untwisted fibers inside a sort of i-cord made from a fine, strong thread. You should be aware that we used a pin to expose the core fibers. This yarn does NOT unravel by itself. Each ball has 110m and works up to about 4-5 stitches per inch on a US 10 or 11 needle. The laundry instructions are to hand wash, lay flat to dry, or dry clean. The price is $17.95 a ball.
Jeanne admits she has fallen in love with this yarn. It's silk-soft but behaves totally differently than any other silk we have in the shop. It's stretchy and elastic with great stitch definition. It makes nice, high cables, and produces a well-defined seed stitch. Most impressive of all (per Jeanne) it doesn't have that nubby, faintly rustic look of so many silks. It's smooth and sophisticated.
The only type of project that we don't recommend is one with very long stitches (the type where you wrap the yarn around the needle and then drop the wraps on the next row) or dropped stitches, like the waterfall scarf. The yarn is a little too relaxed to look its best in long strings. It's probably not a good choice for fringes or tassels, either. It's an expensive yarn, but if you want high style without the itch of wool, you can not do better. Schulana has some great patterns, and it could easily be substituted for any wool of a similar gauge.
Have you tried Fashion Silk? Let us know your experience in the comments.
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