Suppliers of Prepared Thread, Yarn and Filament
The kinds of yarns that we have ordered and have in the lab recently come from various suppliers, but have also come with quite of lot of improvisation and collaborating with European friends in order to order (including some email translations, etc.). You'll also notice that some suppliers use the language of yarn to describe their yarns (ply, denier, etc) while others describe them more like wires (diameter or AWG).
| Supplier | Product | Trickiness | Legacies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Karl Grimm | Wonderful solderable copper and silver yarns | Not so bad with german speaking friends and access to European banking accounts. Website appears to be a virus. | Yarn |
| Bart & Francis | Amazing artful and colorful yarns with things like conductive linen blends | Shipping times vary to US, more accessible within Europe. | Yarn |
| Shieldex | Solid workhorse conductive yarns with great durability and range of properties | Fairly easy for US ordering | Yarn |
| Less EMF | Random offerings of shielding materials, such as conductive yarn. | Pretty simple for US folk. | Neither. |
| Elektrisola | Wide range of insulated copper wires that can get VERY thin | Simple, often accessible through suppliers like Amazon. | Wire |
| Craft Wires | Some interesting offerings of textile covered wires that look and feel like thread | Simple though online shop, labeling makes it difficult to know exactly what you are getting | Wire |
| Giovannia Imperia | Interesting experimental yarns ranging from thin wires to thermoplastics | Online shop available, never used | Yarn |
Lovely community members have also contributed amazing reviews of different yarns and their ability to withstand different machine processes.
- https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=379
- https://fashioningtech.com/2009/02/25/conductive-thread-overview/
If you are making your own hybrid yarns, then you will also need to combine them with materials like linen, cotton, wool, silk etc. For those kinds of supplies, we typically order from Halcyon Yarns or the Woolery. If you just want to be inspired by the glory of fiber and yarn, you can shop Habu Yarns or Weaver House to source things like horse hair, banana, and paper yarns.