A slightly spicy knitting opinion 🌶️

Why would you want to use mohair-silk with another yarn?

Dear fellow hand-dyed yarn lover,

I have a 🌶️ knitting opinion to share with you today.

You and I both know there are lots and lots of sweater patterns made for carrying a strand of mohair-silk yarn along with another yarn to give it a halo of softness and warmth. It’s a style (and maybe a climate) thing. But did you know it can be practical, too?

🌶️ Holding a strand of mohair-silk with another yarn makes the resulting fabric more durable and less prone to pilling.

Mohair, even baby kid mohair, has a very long staple length (3.5 to 5.5 inches, or 8.75 cm to 13.75 cm). That’s longer than the typical merino staple (which is 2 to 5 inches, or 5 to 12.5 cm). Like silk, mohair is strong. Holding a strand of mohair-silk yarn together with a merino wool means that all those softer and shorter merino fibers get tucked around the mohair silk, making them less likely to abrade and pill.

When a sweater made from this combination does pill, the pills are easy to remove, keeping your sweater looking as fresh and gorgeous as the day it came off your blocking mats.

I know all of this because I’ve been knitting this combination for years and wearing my sweaters every day.

🌶️🌶️🌶️ But my spicier knitting opinion is this: It doesn’t cost more to knit with mohair-silk yarn as a second strand than it does to knit with any other hand-dyed yarn.

Yes, you are purchasing two skeins of hand-dyed yarn that are each over $30. But, because you are almost always knitting at a worsted weight gauge, you should think about your project as cost per yard.

For most hand-dyed worsted and DK weight yarns (even accounting for differences in yardage and price), your cost per yard of knitting will be around 12 to 15 cents.¹

For a fingering weight yarn plus a mohair-silk laceweight, held double, your cost per yard of knitting will be around 13 to 14 cents.²

I’ve mostly knit with my Cashmere Blend plus mohair-silk held together (and oh my gosh, this is the most luxurious fabric) but even this extra-luxe combo comes in at 15 cents per yard—comparable to hand-dyed worsted weight yarn.

Working with a worsted weight yarn and working with fingering plus mohair-silk are different knitting experiences—and neither is better or worse than the other—but neither are they different in cost. 🌶️

One of my favorite knitting combinations lately is using my Targhee Sock yarn plus a strand of mohair-silk lace. The picture, above, is my newest finished sweater, another Uniform cardigan (links to Ravelry), with this combination of bases in the colorway Jersey Cow.

The pattern wasn’t written for this yarn combination, but you can use it for nearly any pattern written for a worsted weight gauge. Like:

• The gorgeous Alatau Hat or Pullover by the Kazakh🛫US designer Ainur Berkimbayeva (how great would it be to make matching Alatau hats, one for you, one for a friend! One skein of each base is enough yarn for two hats.)

• This beautiful cabled Drizzle cardigan by Finnish designer SuviKnits

• A stylish Cocoon Chokki by Japanese designer Noriko Ichikawa (links to Ravelry)

Yarn colors you might like that are in the shop right now …

Starling on Mohair-Silk Lace. It positively glows, and I can’t wait to see the fabric it will make when held double with another yarn!

Starling on Cashmere Blend. There are undertones of blue and purple and, if you look closely, you’ll see green too.

These would make a perfect Alatau hat—one skein of each yarn will let you make one for yourself and one to gift.

Or perhaps you want a cozy cardigan to wear on chilly evenings (or during the day if you live in San Francisco, like me) in Macaron, a color that’s sweet and soft and heathered:

And the last color I want to tell you about is Jersey Cow. I’ve just put Jersey Cow back in the shop for preorder because I am wearing my own Jersey Cow sweater so so much. This color is a perfect neutral—and also just that tiny bit extra, with sparse little pops of blue and gold and green.

All of these colors (plus Miss Lavender Lewis, which I told you about last week) will be open for pre-orders until Sunday, June 2nd. (The official turnaround time is 4 to 6 weeks, but I’m dyeing them in batches as soon as yarn arrives at my studio.)

A final note about yarn and affordability: Using hand-dyed yarn for a sweater is a delightful and special treat for a knitter. Some hand-knitters do not have budget constraints around yarn, which is wonderful. Some hand-knitters do have budget constraints, which is also normal. If using my yarn is not in your particular budget but you would really love to try it, you may wish to consider applying to my Community Fund, which can help bring the cost of my yarn to within your budget by giving you a gift card that covers a portion of the total cost. My Community Fund is generously funded by knitters who follow and appreciate my work and who have a bit extra in their budget to share.

I hope this weekend finds you with abundant knitting time and plenty of hand-dyed yarn to run through your fingers.

I’m rooting for you!
—Anne

1. My hand-dyed Targhee Worsted is $34 and 280 yards to a 115g skein. Most DK or worsted hand-dyed yarns are in the range of $30 to $34 for 210 to 250 yards per skein. This is a per yard cost of 12 to 15 cents.

2. My hand-dyed mohair-silk lace is $32 for 477 yards, and my Targhee Sock is also $32 for 465 yards. That’s a per yard cost of 13.5 cents.