tapestry yarn

What makes a good tapestry yarn?

What makes a good tapestry yarn?

For many years when I first started weaving tapestry I used the yarn that my teacher used. After all, it was a great yarn, dyed well, and I was able to get most of the effects I wanted in my work using it.

When I started teaching tapestry, I began experimenting with other tapestry yarns and then with some yarns that are not specifically designed for tapestry weaving. It became a bit of an obsession and over the years of teaching tapestry weaving, I’ve collected and used something like 30 different yarns. Some were difficult and not suited to tapestry and I’ll never use them again for weaving. Others were yarns I loved because they suited the effects I wanted to achieve in my work.

I have a small set of favorites that I use myself, but there are many yarns made in the world that can be used for tapestry weaving. The question is, how do you know which ones those are?

If you’ve taken any of my online classes, you probably have some version of my Yarn Sources handout. As my list of yarns got longer and longer, I realized I might have a problem. I like to collect things and yarn is one of those things. In the name of research I have more tapestry yarns than I can possibly ever use. But the upside of that is that my students get to benefit from my hoarding collecting nature.

What makes a good tapestry yarn?

What makes a good tapestry yarn?

If you're newer to weaving, you may not realize that not all yarns are made equal. In fact, there is so much variety in yarns it is rather hard to qualify what are the best combination of characteristics. And it can be even harder to purchase yarn that has those characteristics. Throw in the need for a large color choice for tapestry weaving, and the options do narrow somewhat.

I live in the USA, so I mostly talk about yarns that are easily available here with one favorite exception from the UK.

So what does make a good tapestry yarn?

How to make beautiful yarn out of poorly dyed singles

How to make beautiful yarn out of poorly dyed singles

Mistakes in dyeing can be messy... but sometimes there is a happy outcome even when you think it is all going to crap partway through.

I made a measuring error while dyeing a violet/blue yarn and as the dye was already in a jar with water in it, I couldn't easily save it. I wanted to use this large volume of dye so it seemed the right moment to try some overdyeing.

A friend recently gave me quite a lot of churro yarn that was dyed by someone else. The colors weren't quite what she wanted and she asked if I could use it. And not being able to say no to free high-quality yarn even when the colors were a little bold, it came to live in my studio.