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(Almost) Always Mix, Never Worry |
Marcy Petrini
December, 2025
“Always mix, never worry” is my motto. I weave a few scarves for our co-op a year and I generally use at least two types of yarns, one for the warp, another for the weft, although sometimes one or the other or both are also mixed. Below is a scarf with a warp of Italian cotton ribbon and a thin weft of 72% kid mohair and 38% silk.
I use nice and sometimes unusual yarns, ones that I have on hand, to keep the cost low and the price for the customers reasonable. Right now, on the loom, getting ready for our Oxford, MS, festival, I have a warp of 80% silk and 20% lavender from https://www.wearwithalltextile.com/ and a weft of mohair and wool blend.
BUT – and here is the big BUT – when I mix, I am familiar with each of the yarns. I have used them before, or if they are new to me, I generally sample them to get to know their characteristics before incorporating them into a project.
My winter weaving class at the Bill Waller Craft Center (https://www.mscrafts.org/) will be starting next week and the subject is for students to weave any item with a fiber they have never used. My suggestion is that they use the same fiber for the yarns for warp and weft. That’s because when using a fiber for the first time, no matter how much you may read about them, you have to learn about them by doing.
The same it’s true for spinning. Once familiar with a fiber, spinners blend to obtain some of the characteristics of each fiber, to make the blend more affordable, or to make it easier to spin.
It’s not surprising that the “Shave ‘em to Save ‘em” initiative of the Livestock Conservancy (https://livestockconservancy.org/get-involved/shave-em-to-save-em/) requests that “show and tell” on their Facebook feed not be of a mixed fiber. The spun yarns and finished products should be one of the sheep breeds on the endangered list not mixed with other breeds or other fibers. To learn about these breeds that we may lose if not protected means that we use them singly first and foremost.
Recently at our guild meeting a member suggested to another spinner that she blend silk with wool to make it easier to spin. The spinner had never spun silk before, and the silks were those below: Bombyx, Muga, Eri, and Peduncle Tasar.
I reacted rather negatively to the suggestion. Even if someone has spun the usual bombyx, these silks are so different that it would be impossible to learn about them by combining them with anything or even each other.
These silks have come to the market rather recently and I fear that they are going to become scarce because of tariffs. So, it behooves us to learn about them while we can.
Mix and not worry, in weaving or spinning but only if you are intimately familiar with the fiber.
Happy Weaving and Spinning in 2026!
Marcy