Not all of us may be into the metallic trend, but technologically advanced products by yarn companies such as Kyototex manage to win the favour of many designers, even of those ones who do not usually like sparkling garments in their collections.
There are actually some great news for people who like metallic yarns but can't wear them for health reasons: for the Autumn/Winter 2013-14 season, Kyototex has developed the “Zero Series”, a series of shiny metallic yarns in polyester film that are 100% formaldehyde and 100% azo free. They are particularly soft and give out very subtle sparkling effects.
The series features two very interesting yarns, “Pure” (polyester film and nylon) and “Manna” (polyester film and polyester).
The former is available in neutral but also in brighter shades such as intense pinks, lilacs and fuchsias.
The latter comes in neutral shades and darker tones and it's dedicated to all those knitwear designers who are into finer shines. All the "Zero Series" yarns received a certification for Class I of the Oeco-Tex Standard 100.
Designers who are on the lookout for a wider choice of colours should instead opt for the “Hagoromo” series, the more classic range of metallic yarns available in 121 shades (some of them are ideal to create moiré-like effects) or the “Vivian” range.
Made using cupro filament twisted with polyester and metallic film, the "Vivian" yarn comes in 48 brighter colours, including aqua green and sky blue and it's recommended for knits with draped effects.
If you think you may be more interested in injecting in your designs some subtle iridescences, go for "Soft Pearl", a non-formaldehyde yarn that comes in pastel shades including soft lemon, pale blue and delicate pink.
If you prefer yarns that offer more brightness try "Esther", "Somar" or the "Metaric Tasuki" range, but if you want something with a genuinely metallic feel about it to create chainmail-like inserts or integrate armour-like motifs into your designs, go for Abigail, Abigail-Pedy and Abigail Philos (all in rayon and nylon film).
Kyototex's Abigail yarns all shine like metals (Kyototex is actually the first company that has created such a thick metallic yarn to knit), though Abigail is suitable for 3 or 5 gauge knitting, Abigail-Pedy for 5 to 7 gauge knitting and Abigail-Philos (the softest and finest of the three) for 10 to 12 gauge knitting.
There are actually some new dark shades of Abigail yarns: among my favourite ones there are Graphite, Black Onyx and Black Berry, grey/black yarns that give out some lovely silvery/navy sparkles.
Kyototex are true professionals and that's clear also from the sample bag they gave to their customers during the recent Pitti Filati fair. The bag included a selection of six yarns – Pure, Manna, Etelo, Abigail, Abigail-Pedy and Abigail-Philos.
The extremely kind staff at Pitti Filati's Kyototex stand urged me to try my hand at knitting with their yarns, but I think they will be happy all the same if I use their samples to make some crazy accessories rather than knit proper garments with them.
I do already have a few in mind and the first experiments with Abigail yarns have already taken place (in fact I'm already running out of Abigail...guess I will have to order more pretty soon).
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Abigail is an catching a lot of attention, but the problem is that the core yarn is either white or black, and sometimes shows the core yarn after knitting.
Reiko has another product similar and softer called Mizar....
http://www.suncoco.com/en/products.php?cid=33
Posted by: Suncoco | September 01, 2012 at 05:07 PM
we are manufacturing of plastic spool for metallic yarn.
Posted by: Jignesh Baxi | December 04, 2012 at 10:17 AM