Wool Yarns

[mickalo]

Hi,

hope everyone had a great Christmas

I was doing some browsing for some wool yarns and came across this type of yarn: 100% Peruvian Highland Wool and was wondering if anyone here has used this type of yarn and if it's good for fly tying ?? A recent artical I was reading on Frank Sawyer's killer bug fly got me looking for some good wool yarn material.

thx's

Mike

[Buddy Sanders]

Mike,

I'm sure that the 'type' of wool you found would be fine for fly tying...

But, I do lots of art shows and events and there are folks out there who raise animals (goats, alpacas, llamas, sheep, rabbits, plus some odd ones) specifically for their 'wool'. Most of it is 'hand spun'. Lots of this 'high grade' or 'high end' or even 'high quality' wool is very pretty. It's also incredibly expensive..couple hundred bucks a 'short' skein isn't uncommon.

I use lots of wool in my fly tying...I'm on a crusade to eliminate dubbing wherever I can (personally, not universally). I like wool because it wets well, comes in a wide array of colors, and is very versatile. 'Unspun' long fibered wools make great streamer wings.

Black wool is black wool, though. Once it's on the fly, no one, least of all the fish, can tell a piece of wool from a $100 skein from one from a $1 'bargain-price reduced to clear' skein.

The 'cheap stuff' works just fine for fly tying...ANY yarn store, or even the big box places in their sewing section, will have wool yarns. These are cheap and work just fine.

Now, that being said, I do have some hand spun exotic wools in my materials...usually short pieces that were gifted to me from the aforementioned wool artists who know of my passion for fly tying..I've even traded some of my own artwork to get some of it..I have a hard time resisting when the colors are unique.

As far as the yarn you found goes, if they have colors you like and If you find doing so aceptable, you might even be able to talk the manufacturer/distributor out of some 'samples' (they will sometimes send you a small length of each color..plenty for a lot of fly tying).

Buddy

[mickalo]

Thanks Buddy for the great info. I found this on a web site called Knit Picks, a friend of mine using this site for other things, and found the wool yarn.

It runs about $2 for 110yds ball. Got some really nice colors to choose from too. So may order a few skeins to try out, shipping is very reasonable so won't be out too much money. Checked out some sources on Ebay but the prices where outrageous! I wanted to say as close to 100% wool as possible. This stuff looks very nice and should do the trick

Thanks again and happy holidays,

Mike

[JeffHamm]

Hi mickalo,

I agree with Buddy. Wool is a great fly tying material. It takes a dye fairly easily as well, so if you just buy white and grey, you can create any colour you want (kool-aid and food colouring both, and you can get dyes from onion skins, red cabbage, coffee, as well - think anything that stains!). Wool yarn makes great bodies on Matuku style streamers. Anywhere you would use chenille you can use wool for the same fly in the smaller sizes. You can twist the yarn as well, and this will either open it up like floss, or tighten it into a tighter rope. If you pull the yarn into strands then you can mix two or three colours and retwist. Also, and although Buddy may shudder at this, if you just pull the yarn apart, you get a good dubbing too! If you look around at craft stores you can often find DMC tapastry yarn, which gives you a huge selection of colours to select from and you only have to buy about 15 yards or so. Anyway, wool is a very useful fly tying material that seems to have gone out of fashion lately. I've been reading some old New Zealand patterns though, it used to be used a lot. I think chenille has replaced it.

- Jeff

[mickalo]

I've used yarns to create some really neat dubbing too. Break down the plies and you can make some nice furled extend bodies too with a little practice

I may pick up a couple of skeins of this wool yarn to try it out. it's cheap

MIke