Yak/Mulberry Silk Roving/Sliver
Listing is for 50 grams (1.75 oz).
A custom blend made for The Olive Sparrow — this is a commercially triple-blended roving/top which mixes the silk with the yak to create a lovely variegated roving. Although it requires some gentle coaxing to wet felt due to the high content of mulberry silk, the resulting felt is an absolute dream to wear right next to the skin.
The yak fibre is naturally fawn coloured, the mulberry silk is undyed. Please note that each batch of Yak might vary in colour and might be lighter or darker, which is natural for the yak fibre.
To produce yak fibre for felting, the soft fine underhair is the desirable element of this animal’s coat and is removed commercially by dehairing, which separates the soft under hair from the coarse outer hair, known as guard-hair.
This also makes a lovely spun yarn fur luxurious hand-knit/woven items.
Using acid dyes on this fibre is very interesting — the yak and it’s brown/yellow undertones combined with the undyed silk absorbs colours differently and will make mottled/variegated tones. As the fibre is very fine, it lends itself to be dyed after felting or spinning.
