How should designers choose yarn for knitwear collections?

In addition to the design, the choice of yarn is also very important for a good knitwear. The right choice of yarn makes the design half successful. Coupled with the excellent design concept. It hard to make a good knitwear if don’t have suitable yarn. So you have to be proficient in all the characteristics of yarn, and its craftsmanship, grain, hand feel, texture, comfort, plasticity, functionality and colors you need to know. Understand what’s the method of knitting and which needles are suitable for different yarn. Different yarns together will have more different effects.

Type of yarn, it is mainly divided into natural fiber and chemical fiber. We will not expand the description in this article, and each category will be described in detail later.

Cotton: Its advantages are strong water absorption, softy, breathable and dry in spring, warmly in winter, dyeing conveniently and etc. Nice price and high count cottons are particularly smooth.

Linen:It is made of hemp fabric. Its advantages are strong water absorption, glossy, pleasantly cool and easy to wash. It has bad softness, easy to wrinkle and fade. Bad hand feel and not body conscious. Usually it blends with cotton and wool to improve its performance.

Silk: It is made of natural silk. It is mostly made into summer knitwear. The hand feel is softly and smoothly, colorful and glossy. It is strong water absorption, comfortable and luxury. It is not resistant to light, water and easy to wrinkle.

Wool: It’s good for moisture, stretch, fixed shape, water uptake and not easy to dissipate heat and wrinkle. Natural glossy and colorful. And its disadvantage is easy to shrink and be eaten by insects. It has heavy woolen fabric and fine woolen fabric. Generally used for making coats, over coats, formal wear and etc. It has wool, mohair, yak, angora, alpaca and etc.

Cashmere: It’s fluffy and softy, high hygroscopicity and hand feel is soft, exquisite and smooth. But it’s easy to pilling.

Trend yarn: It is mainly natural fibers which the appearance is similar to the natural fiber fabric. But it’s characteristic is depend on the fiber material we used. Ordinarily chemical fiber is wear resistance, wrinkle resistance, drying quickly and non-ironing. It has bad softy, hygroscopicity and air permeability. Also has static electricity.

The characteristics of yarn

Matt yarn: Yarn’s texture has a strong three-dimensional sense and obvious texture. Due to rough surface, the sense of color is relatively weak. The purity is mostly medium or low purity. The color is steady and thick. It gives people a calm, heavy, simple and comfortable feeling. Such as cashmere, wool, alpaca wool, which has a certain sense of volume and plush, with a sense of expansion.

Glossy yarn has smooth surface. These yarn mostly used in spring and summer, such as silk, acetate, acrylic and chemical fiber like gold and silver thread.

Thick heavy yarn: Thick texture, and has a certain sense of volume and expansion. These material needs to match with the corresponding weaving method like half milano, full milano or Lycra weaving. It can appear thick and warm. It is used for over coat which demand good looking, rich in texture and style.

Design style matching yarn

The category and color of yarn should conform to the fashion trend. We can obtain information by fashion magazines or brand launch, or go to the international yarn exhibition.
The weaving method of yarn can match the design concept. Different yarn corresponds to different texture. It needs knowledge accumulation and practical application for a long time to obtain. It can ask the factory to provide more kinds of texture clothes in the early stage.
The cost of yarn can match the cost of the single design. Different yarn has different cost. The prices range from dozens to thousands, it need to correspond to the brand’s price.
Yarn used in different seasons. Cotton and linen are widely used in spring and summer. Wool, villus, the news fiber such as fancy yarn and etc are widely used in autumn and winter.
The delivery time of bulk production of wool should also be considered. We need to find out if this yarn is in stock when we choose the yarn? If this yarn need to reserve? For example, the yarn deliver is in 45-60 days in Italy same as some domestic new yarns. Does it match the company’s production plan.

How to find the right yarn?

Go to the yarn exhibition site to collect more. The first is PITTI IMMAGINE FILATI which will be held in Florence every year. The exhibition is held twice a year, spring and summer exhibition in January, autumn and winter exhibition in July. The scale of autumn and winter exhibition is relatively large, which is held in PITTI castle in Florence every year. And it’s mainly fancy yarn.
let factory send yarn category and color card. Let the cooperative factories introduce more yarn categories and color cards if you don’t have free time to participate the exhibition.
As mentioned earlier, different yarns correspond to different weaves can show different textures. You can ask the factory to try more kinds of texture clothes before the sample developed. It is easy to choose that you have actual effect.

Thank you for your support of FINEKNITTING! Thanks for reading!