Dear Weavers
Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful festive season with family and friends, lots of laughter and beautiful sunshine in your hearts. My husband and I took two weeks off over Christmas and New Years and used the time to do some work around the house. There is still so much we need to do, small jobs everywhere and with all the rain the weeds started to grow like crazy. But of course there was also time to go out and visit friends and neighbours. Overall a very nice change from all the office/computer work and weaving. I am back now with new enthusiasm and energy.
In this blog post I would like to talk about the tencel yarn. BB Yarn Supply has the Tencel 10/2 and 20/2 on stock. Both are available in their natural white colour, ready to be dyed or simply used in white. They come in 100g spools and have the reasonable price of $17.90
What is Tencel? Well, the name Tencel is really a brand name. The real yarn content is lyocell. Lyocell is basically a kind of wood pulp which is 100% cellulose fibre, like cotton or linen. The wood pulp is then chemically processed to create the yarn. A similar process like a rayon fibre. The only difference is that Tencel is a registered trademark and might be slightly different than a rayon or viscose yarn. I find the Tencel yarn quite special, it is a bliss to work with. It is what I call a slippery yarn. The reason why I say this is that the yarn has a very smooth surface and has absolutely no fluff. But it still feels soft and luxurious to touch. Tencel yarn has an absolutely gorgeous drape and feels light and cuddly on the skin. A very suitable yarn to make scarves or shawls and not having to go over your yarn budget. One of the main attributes of Tencel is how well it takes the dye. It is really easy to get a beautiful bright colour with most cellulose dyes. This yarn is therefore ideal for warp dyeing or painting. Just recently the Handwoven magazine presented (November/December issue) a project with Tencel 10/2 and dyed warp. See below.
Handwoven magazin November/December 2022, pp 54-56
The sett I would use for Tencel 10/2 is 20-30epi and for the Tencel 20/2 I recommend 28-45epi. Both yarns make beautiful products in any sort of weave structure. But I would say this yarn is probably best used for a scarf, shawl or yardage. Tencel can of course also be mixed with any other yarn, for example have the Tencel in the warp and another yarn in the weft. Here are some examples:
Leno in Tencel 10/2
Twill yardage for a sofa cover
Huck lace in Tencel 20/2 for a shirt
I hope I was able to inspire you a little bit with my Tencel ideas. Should you be interested and would like to try out the Tencel yarn, use the link below or click on any picture to get straight to the Tencel page on BB Yarns online shop.
Should you have any questions, please don't hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. Always happy to hear from you.
To finish this off, here is a little visitor from our veranda. This fellow sits on my shoes in front of our window every night and has a feast from all the insect that get attracted by the light. Isn't he handsome?
Thanks for reading and happy weaving until next time.
Cheers
Ursula
