Our love affair with MOHAIR deepens... ❤️

It's actually taken me a little while to get completely past my bad memories of prickly mohair and acrylic from the 80s. Maybe that's why so many of the gorgeous new mohairy patterns come from designers who are too young to have been there 😂.

But I'm now 100% converted, and have fallen hard for this wonder fibre (when it's a high quality, ethically produced mohair, and not cheap crap from dodgy sources - which will still prickle, by the way! [we don't stock that stuff]).

Mohair comes from the Angora Goat 🐐 (not to be confused with Angora yarn which comes from rabbits 🐰 - I know, I know!). 

Although all mohair fibre is strong and lustrous, there are lots of "grades" which mainly depend on the breed, age of the goat, and which part of the goat it comes from!

Here are some more reasons to board the mohair train:

• It's smooth non-scaley surface means that it can't be felted like wool...

• ...but's elastic like wool, so easy to work with!

• Dyers love it because it can deliver super vibrant, glowing colours.

• It's a great for garments because it's hard-wearing, ultra-light and warm.  Clothes made with mohair won't felt or pill!

• It's insulating, without absorbing heat, so it regulates your body temperature

• It's anti-bacterial, so it won't get smelly, and will wick moisture away from your body to keep you fresh!

• It's non-flammable (unless you set it on fire - duh).

• It's not from sheep, so doesn't have lanolin, which means that people with wool allergies can usually wear it.

Most of our mohair is in the form of lace-weight Silk-Mohair. On its own, most knitters and crocheters will find it fiddly to work with, but certainly not impossible. And ripping back if you make a mistake can be such a ball-ache. But the fabric produced by a single thread of silk-mo is always worth the effort, in my opinion!

But if you're not quite there yet, holding silk-mo with another yarn (or another thread of silk-mo) is a game changer! It's so much easier to work with.

It's worth thinking about adding it alongside another yarn if you want to: 

• add softness and a halo

• bulk up the gauge a little bit

• add some warmth

• add textural interest

• create a marled/heathered fabric with more depth by using a silk mo that's not the same colour as the other thread

Krea's gorgeous take on a lace-weight Silk-Mo is actually a Silk-Mo-Babe-Paca! It contains 22% baby alpaca!

For me this has translated to a fabric that has a touch less halo than other silk-mohairs, but all the durability, lustre and softness. 

The colours are gorgeous (just like the Krea Cotton colours), and they sit nicely together with loads of our other yarns.

We've got loads of lovely Silk Mohair to choose from though!

The main differences between them are the quality of the fibres (none of them are crap, but some are ultra luxurious) and whether they've been hand-dyed (and hence have that extra dimension of tonality and interest) or machine dyed ("flat"colour).

But you'll find that skeins/balls range from 14g - 100g, and yardages from 150m - 560m, which will also account for the price differences.

Check these out, along with our full selection that you can find here: