If I had an Olympic-level talent, I think we could all agree it would it is for collecting yarn that might be useful for tapestry weaving. I justify this to both myself and the IRS as an exceptionally important teaching tool. If I have some idea of at least some of the commercially available yarns out there that work well for tapestry, I can pass that information on to my students which makes them more successful in their learning.

One thing I love to have in front of me when evaluating a potential material is color cards made with actual yarn. Many companies use printed color cards and it is impossible to really know what color that yarn is until you order some of it. In tapestry weaving, the color of the yarn matters a great deal and so yarn cards are a fantastic tool if they’re available.

I had the idea for this post when Gist Yarn sent me these beauties with their new Array tapestry yarn. These may be the most beautiful yarn cards I’ve ever seen. Turns out they do these for all of their signature yarns.

I searched through my stashes of yarn this month and pulled out all the yarn cards I have. Then I ordered a few more. The photos below are just a little eye candy so you can drool over the colors a bit. This list is in no way exhaustive and there are other yarns for tapestry out there that I love. I just don’t have color cards for them!

Array

Gist Yarn’s new tapestry yarn Array has already seen color expansion in the few short months it has been around. I used this yarn on my most recent larger tapestry and it did not disappoint me. Here are some more images of their color card. You can see me weaving with it on Change the Shed. Here is a blog post about that.

Appleton crewel

Another favorite tapestry yarn the world over is Appleton crewel. This is an embroidery yarn made in the UK but it is quite easy to get in the USA in embroidery shops. It is sold in small hanks and in skeins. It comes in (wait for it), over 400 colors including gradation. So if it is the widest possible range of colors you want, Appleton crewel is your yarn. It is hard to get your mind around how many colors that is even when you see them all represented in this color sample box.

I will give you one caution about the name. Appleton also makes a yarn called Appleton tapestry. This is also intended for embroidery* and though I have heard of tapestry weavers using Appleton tapestry to weave tapestry, I much prefer their crewel yarn for tapestry weaving. The crewel yarn is much thinner and must be bundled, but it results in a firm yarn that works well. Appleton tapestry is quite airy and feels too bouncy for my tastes. But if you like it, it also comes in over 400 colors, so have at it!

Appleton’s color card has the tapestry yarn as the color example, but that shouldn’t matter even if you’re using the crewel version. The colors are the same.

A close-up of Appleton crewel yarn in skein form. You can get the yarn in small amounts as shown here or in larger skeins.

Weaversbazaar

I have a deep soft spot in my heart for this company. Weaversbazaar is run by a tapestry weaver and Lin (and Matty until she retired!) does a wonderful job of providing a beautiful tapestry yarn in three weights along with a wonderful selection of tools and a fantastic newsletter. They also have color cards with real yarn. These images are their cards from a few years ago so the options have probably changed, but they look like this. I like that they have examples of all three weights of their yarn represented here.

Harrisville Yarns

I use two of Harrisville’s yarns for tapestry weaving. For my personal work I dye their Koehler singles but those don’t come in colors. For beginners I often recommend using Harrisville Highland. Harrisville makes a lovely color card of this yarn which they actually weave and assemble.

Faro

One of the yarns I have recommend to students is a Swedish yarn from Borgs called Faro. In past I only had printed color cards but a few years ago Suzie Liles of Glimakra USA handed me actual yarn-containing color cards at a show. And recently a student told me about Vavastuga’s Yarn-in-a-jar which is a fantastic way to get all the colors in small amounts. Basically it is a color card in a different format. This yarn is readily available in many places in the world and it dyes beautifully.

The Vavstuga yarn-in-a-jar comes wrapped on these little plastic embroidery floss holders with the color name on the edge. There is enough yarn you could weave a very small sample if you wanted to, but I rather like having this jar just as it is for color samples because I can move them around as I am choosing colors.

Frid

Another tapestry yarn I really like is Frid which is made in Norway. I have a well-used card for this lovely yarn. This yarn is made at the Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk spinnery in Norway. They also make the lovely ALV yarn which has similar-looking color cards. Unfortunately I do not remember where I got these color cards. I purchase Frid from Norsk Fjord Fiber in the USA.

EPiC

Timeless Textiles sells EPiC yarn now. It is a favorite yarn for many tapestry weavers and they sell this set of their yarns in little hanks all tied to cards with the color number on them. It is an ingenious system as you can certainly use some of the yarn to sample if you want or you can just keep the whole lot as a fantastic color card.

Making/selling yarn cards

Yarn cards are a pricey item to be sure. I used to sell a yarn card that had a little bit of a wide variety of tapestry yarns I recommended. Making those cards was a labor of love. No matter what you charge for them, it isn’t enough. So if someone is offering a yarn card with actual yarn, know that whatever price they’re asking for it is reflective of how much time it takes to make them and they’re probably still not recouping their time and materials.

These are the old yarn cards I used to make by hand to sell to students primarily in beginning workshops. Some of these yarns are no longer made and I’ve added others to my favorites list. I no longer sell these because the labor involved along with the cost of purchasing the yarns is prohibitive. But you could make your own by collecting a bit of each of the yarns you’re interested in. Buy enough to weave a small sample so you know what you really think about a yarn.

Rebecca Mezoff’s yarn sample cards (no longer available to purchase)

If you want to know more about these yarns, you can explore the Yarn blog posts under the Yarn category. I also talk about some of them in my book, The Art of Tapestry Weaving.

Making your own yarn cards

If you dye your own yarn, keeping a record of that is important and results in your own personal yarn card collection. Mine has grown quite unwieldy. I keep buying new binders for my cards and before I know it I’ve filled another one. But this record of my own dye experiments is important and very useful when I’m sampling for a new color or want to repeat a color I’ve figured out before.

Rebecca Mezoff's dye samples — Rebecca Mezoff’s method of collecting dye samples. Formulas and any cross referencing numbers are written on the cards along with the date dyed.

For those of you who want to dye your own yarn for tapestry or any other fiber pursuit, I have a dye class about using acid wool dyes coming in May of 2022. Make sure to sign up for my newsletter, Tapestry Picks, if you want to be included in the first run of the class.

Do you have other experiences with yarn cards? Do you make your own? Do you have other examples of great color cards you’d like to share? Please let us know in the comments!

*The word tapestry is often used to mean embroidery in the UK. It is incorrect, but it is doubtful we can change it easily!

Yarn and color: using yarn color cards made with actual yarn