Yarns, Yarns, and More Yarns

Yarns, Yarns, and More Yarns

Sherri Woodard Coffey

I see what is posted from “real” tapestry weavers about the yarns they use, and the one most often mentioned is Paternayan wools. Since I dye all my own wool, I really hadn’t paid much attention to these mentions, other than to notice the word—after all, it IS a pretty unusual word. One way that I hope to use the Mirrix loom is to experiment with a pictorial tapestry, something I’ve never done before. With that in mind, I made a little trip to my local needlepoint shop, The French Knot. This is not the needlepoint store that I remember from many, many years ago; it is NOT your mama’s needlepoint store. The type and variety of yarns now available is astounding! Besides the amazing number of silk, metallic, cotton, and Paternayan yarns, there are also some others that seemed quite interesting. Below are pictures of the types that I bought, but not the colors. I included a color chart for Gold Rush, so the variety of colors can be seen.

The yarn below from the Thread Gatherer comes in a very small skein. It’s 100% kid mohair. You can see the colors that this yarn comes in here.Another mohair yarn that I got is from Gumnut Yarns, an Australian company. It's what they call their Tulips selectionJ. L. Walsh Yarns-silk/merino 50/50 blend. I couldn’t find a website for the company, but I did find this information from Caroline’s Thread and Canvas:

J. L. Walsh Silk
We stock Silk/Wool, a 5-ply 50/50 blend. It is an over-dyed thread with subtle richness and color variation. We currently stock the 50 most popular colors.

This yarn is overdyed, so there are color variations as one would expect. In fact, that’s one of the things I like about my own hand-dyed yarns—the little inconsistencies in the color. Those fascinate me and keep me engaged as I am weaving.

All of these yarns are worth experimenting with in a small way. I would not want to count on them for one of the big pieces without this experimentation, so I’ll throw them into whatever I’m doing on the Mirrix in order to test sett, feel, and appearance.