i knitted this 1×1 rib scarf over the holidays: a ball of patterned acrylic sitting in one of my yarn baskets looked as though it should be a scarf. i’m not sure whether i’ll actually wear this - certainly it’s not scarf weather today - or whether it will be for someone else.
yes, despite all my linking of beautiful expensive yarns made from exotic plants, i still knit with cheap acrylic pretty often. this vegan knitter wrote an interesting post recently about yarn snobbery and the classism attached: how regardless of vegan opinions about wool, not everyone can afford “luxury” animal (or plant) yarns and there’s no need to be elitist about it. i’m fortunate enough to be able to sometimes afford pricey yarns, but most of my stash is actually second hand: inherited from others, bought from people selling off their stashes on trade me, found at op shops.
one website i’m considering buying some yarn from is ecoyarns in australia. yarn traders is no longer stocking south west trading company stuff (soy silk, bamboo, etc), so i think australia is the closest place i can buy it from. i’d quite like to make something a bit bigger with soy silk (e.g. here is a v. cute soysilk tanktop knitted from a teva durham pattern), i think bamboo would make a good clapotis (& check out the beautiful new colours on the swtc blog), & a-maizing (made from corn fibre) looks interesting. ecoyarns also sells pakucho organic cotton (colour-grown & pretty dyed colours) and “black diamond” bamboo carbon fibre for handspinning.
and i probably won’t buy actually yarn from habu textiles because it’s on the other side of the world in new york, but i do like looking at their website. i was updating my vegan yarns page the other day, so browsed through their whole catalogue. some favourites:
- i’ve been liking the looks of shoshenshi linen paper for a while; they also make pine paper and a few different linen paper blends.
- handspun hemp is very handmade: “the fiber is split one by one, then the ends are twisted and connected together all by hand.”
- hand-dyed kasuri cotton is just pretty
- copper bamboo (67% bamboo, 33% copper) bends & keeps its shape, but apparently is still soft like bamboo.
- i like knitting with tape yarns, and knitted ramie tape looks like it has an interesting texture.
- the most amazing though: fishnet yarn. this is 100% linen with a persimmon tannin coating, and is made from recycled fish nets.
i also added a couple of new fibres to the list: kenaf is a type of hibiscus, with fibre similar to jute. habu makes a couple of types of kenaf yarn. fique is related to the pineapple.
& to conclude this post with more beautiful expensive plant yarn, here is some v. pretty handspun soysilk on etsy.
