Merino Silk is a blend of silk & wool in a crewel weight thickness. While there are many silk/wool blends out there, most fall into one of two categories. They are either thick, like Silk & Ivory, being a real challenge for many stitchers on 18-mesh canvas. Or else they are smooth, more like a soft matte silk than the fuzzier wool. Impressions is a good example of these threads.
Merino Silk is different. It is very soft, one of the softest of these blends I’ve seen, and has a wooly texture. That makes it unique among the current crop of this.
It is a crewel weight thread, being about the thickness of Appleton. On their website they compare it to Medici. However it is slightly thinner and significantly more fuzzy than that French wool. It is not, however, as fuzzy as Appleton crewel.
I used it doubled for Basketweave on unpainted 18-mesh canvas and got complete coverage. The website suggests 2 strands on painted and 3 on unpainted, but, for me, 3 strands would have been too thick.
I liked the thread but I did not like the packaging. As you can see from the picture, it is wound into donuts, similar to knitting yarn. Unlike knitting yarn, these are not center pull skeins, you get your thread from the outside of the ball. Because they have 30 yards in them (which is generous for a thread), they become small quite fast, so tangling can be a problem. It’s also hard to pull off stitching lengths from these skeins. If you need multiple strands you will have to go through this process more than once or revert to doubling your thread.
That’s inconvenient enough, but the donuts are packaged in small plastic bags with stapled cardboard labels closing them. All thread information is on that label. Because of the shape of the skein I can’t put it onto a thread drop and transfer the information. Because the bag isn’t a zipper bag, I can’t store it in the package it came in.
That to my mind severely limits the usefulness of a lovely thread. I initially wondered why I couldn’t find these threads (and the company’s other threads) in more shops. Now I know. In spite of really liking the thread, I won’t be buying more and the more than half-skein will be going to a scrap bag project because without a way to identify it, it’s just another mystery thread.
It’s a shame because it’s a great thread that deserves better.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
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