Thursday 11 November 2010

Yarn Review: Artyarns Beaded Mohair & Silk

This yarn is a bonafide luxury. I picked up a skein last summer at Jimmy Beans when I visited the shop. I planned my trip so that I could go and browse, and then go back a couple of days later when I'd had a chance to think about it - but I couldn't leave without the Artyarns. I would have been heartbroken if it hadn't been there when I went back.

In spite of being so beautiful, it languished for nearly a year before I had some Jimmy Beans Bucks to spend and treated myself to skein number 2. This made a sizable hat, with enough left over for a little pair of wristlets or maybe a small, lacy neckwarmer.



(I know: I still haven't blogged about this hat as a FO. The light is so bad these days, though - I can't get a decent picture.)

It's 80% silk and 20% mohair and Ravelry list it as a worsted, but I think it's more of a DK. The yarn is spun with sequins and beads in one of the plies and it is extremely sparkly when knitted up: much sparklier than I anticipated, or could see in the skein. I picked silver but there are lots of colourways available with gold. These don't make it awkward to knit with. I was worried the sequins would dig into my hands but it really doesn't; the only issue is when there happens to be a sequin when you're pulling through a stitch but I got used to it really quickly.

I had to frog this hat twice and the yarn coped well with frogging. I had to take it very slowly, but no freezing was required and it didn't look too bedraggled at the end of it. The mohair takes away some of the heavy drape of the silk and gives it a pretty halo. My colourway was artfully dyed so that the brighter turquoise and green bits spiralled and then doubled back on itself. Bearing in mind the skeins were bought a year apart, the colour matching was very close and I couldn't see any difference in colour.

That's just as well because it's very dear! I don't know that I could bring myself to buy it in bulk. It was used for a pattern in Vogue Knitting this spring - a lacey, drapey cardigan, for which I would have needed 6 or 7 skeins. HOW MUCH?!

I won't deny I'm tempted, though. It would be absolutely stunning in a garment. Perhaps I should start saving....then I'd have to pick a colour though, and that would be almost as impossible as saving in the first place.

Anyway - I can heartily recommend it!

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