Silk isn't delicate. Other than spiderweb, you'd be hard pressed to find a material stronger at a given diameter prior to the development of synthetics. Some of the fabrics made from those fibers are delicate though, and often the trim on them is dainty. (No offense to our ladies, it is.) And it will stain.

"The only experience of silk I have with is with silk ties, pick up a stain, coffee or whatever and bye-bye tie. Someone once said take it to the dry cleaners, only round here it's 7 euro's ($10) to clean a tie???? So I try to avoid silk ties for that reason. So what's the maintenance on a silk neckscarf/bandana?"

Silk has been around for five thousand years.

Dry cleaning was invented in the mid-1800s.

Simple silk items like kerchiefs are just washed gently in a mild detergent added to cold water. Swish it around, let it soak a bit, swish it some more, rinse in cold water, then hang to dry in a shady spot. You don't want to use harsh detergents, hot water, do any wringing, hard scrubbing, or drying in sunlight. Iron at lower temperatures.

Note: The Care Labeling law only has to give ONE one method of cleaning, not ALL acceptable methods.

BTW, scarves were also used around the neck to protect the main garment from the wearer's body oil, sweat and dirt. A scarf is simpler to wash than a $500 leather jacket.

Sue

Frankie, if none of those pan out, try art supply houses. You can get white silk of good quality as the base material for silk screening.

Like these:
http://www.dickblick.com/zz630/00/
The 14x72" scarf is a little over eight bucks; a 35" square is about ten. And they have a variety of dyes- not bright orange, but the magenta should pop out from the background.

Hi, Phil !

1) when lunching, use a napkin around your neck !

2) for any grease stain, on silk or other cloth, rapidly and firstly (??) use some "terre de sommières" on the grease spot. Let it rest a bit. This very fine powder will absorb most of the grease out of the fabric, thus making washing much easier.

"terre de sommières"?

Ah, found a reference to it in a discussion board on stains:
"In France I was introduced to what they call terre de sommieres, which is a fine clay powder that is an absolute miracle for greasy stains on leather and suede. You just rub a bit of the powder into the stain, wait a few hours or overnight, and when you brush it off, the stain is gone. I've used it on suede bags, shoes, and leather coats. But I'm not sure what it would be called in the US -- if it exists here at all."

Sue

Terre de sommieres is avaialble in the USA. I'll dig up my resource and post later. Of course T.E. Lawrence knew what he was about. The man was irish, or anglo- irish in the biographies. He was just a little to theatrical in that outfit. Now Sir Richard Burton would sit all day in mufti being kicked by his brother officers to practise his skills.

silk maps I did a quick search and found this.

bandanas
these are printed with useful info so I included them anyway.

I just ordered a couple of the silk bandanas from jinglebobs. From the website and photos they look good. I couldn't pass up that bright orange one. Let you know about the quality when I get them sometime next week.

It looks like "terre de Sommières" ( literal translation = "earth from Sommières", Sommières being a town, in south of France) is another name for Montmorillonite


Hope it helps....

That would be great to hear some feedback. Pictures would be even better