Know your yarn:
SOME PURLS OF WISDOM FOR YOUR NEXT KNITTING ADVENTURE.
Purls of wisdom for your knitting adventures
With winter comes the familiar clickety-clack of knitting needles. Sitting in front of an open fire or Golden Girls repeats on TV, there’s nothing more soothing, satisfying, and occasionally infuriating than knitting a scarf or other fluffy object. But while sheep’s wool is our favourite go-to for counting out those garter stitches, there are lots of other options that don’t go ‘baaa’.
ALPACA: Despite originating in harsh conditions on Peruvian mountaintops 4000 metres above sea level, these odd-looking creatures produce one of the animal world’s softest fibres. While sheep just mosey about paddocks all day eating grass, alpacas typically lead a harder, colder life. End result: their coats are 20 per cent warmer than sheep’s wool and cashmere. Plus, the wool is lighter and has less pilling.
LLAMA: These guys are the big brothers of the alpacas. They are meant to be beasts of burden, not fibre producers, so they’re not as comfy to wear around your neck. On the plus side, their yarn is oil-free, and a lot of the spools you buy in Australia will be spun from free-range llama hair. Fun fact: the llamas’ mating call is known as an ‘orgle’. That has nothing to do with wool, but is good to know anyway.
GOAT: You might not realise it, but you probably already have a bit of goat in your wardrobe, as a lot of common winter warmers come from different kinds of kids. The cashmere goat from Central Asia produces a very silky, toasty yarn, and mohair comes from angora goats that – no joke – look like albino Rastafarian animals with bad perms. They’re both very soft and warm, and a bit on the expensive side.
ANGORA: Just to confuse you, angora yarn doesn’t come from angora goats – it comes from the angora rabbit. These little fellows resemble fluffy snowballs with ears, and they’re either shaved or plucked a few times a year. The yarn doesn’t have much natural elasticity, so it’s usually blended with other wools to make it more breathable. As with goats, the purer the blend, the more expensive the yarn.
YAK: These big boys are the perfect example of most furry animals’ natural warmth systems. To keep critters happy in chilly conditions, Ms Nature created them with two layers of hair: one long and one short. This aids insulation. The inner layer of yak down can be brushed out once a year and is very warm, very soft, and very, very expensive. The longer layer is coarser, and in some males it’s so long it almost sweeps the ground.
MILK: No, really! You can spin yarn from milk. The process of how yarn boffins get thread out of your morning cappuccino is pretty complicated – something about micro-zinc ions and natural solvents and other doozy-whatsits. The result contains 18 amino acids and naturally hydrates the skin, so it’s doing more good than just decorating your neck. Maybe not a great idea for those who are lactose intolerant, though.
CHITIN: Stop reading now if you get squirmy around seafood. This is a type of yarn spun from the shells of prawns, crabs, lobsters and other molluscs. And the weirder bit? It makes up a small part of many mixed yarns because of its high protein levels, so you may already be wearing a jumper made partly from shrimp. In a purer form, chitin is also used as surgical thread, as it biodegrades well and has slightly mysterious healing qualities. Just a tip: be careful and read labels properly if you’re vegan.
INSECT: Before you get fidgety, insect fibres generally refer to silk. Different types of silk are produced by different kinds of insects, such as silkworms (the baby form of silk moths), certain caterpillar larvae and even arachnids, which create what is commonly known as ‘spider silk’. The silk thread is usually collected from the cocoon that’s created during a larvae’s metamorphosis into an adult insect, Kafka-style.
HEMP: If you’re looking for environmentally happy yarn, this gets a thumbs up. The raw materials used for spinning are taken from the stalk of a type of cannabis plant (but not the same variety that generally gets rolled up and smoked). As hemp is quite resilient, it is commonly produced without the aid of pesticides and herbicides. It’s normally pretty tough to work with, but pure hemp has a similar texture to linen.
LINEN: Linen has been spun for about 7000 years, making it one of the oldest known materials. It has a lot of natural fibre and oil in it, but is more of a summer fabric as it quickly absorbs and releases moisture, making it a top choice for sweaty weather. It’s also very durable, and drought and disease-resistant. What this means for you is that it’s quite often chemical-free: farmers don’t need artificial help to keep it alive.
BAMBOO: The bamboo plant commonly grows without chemicals, improves the soil, holds groundwater, and removes carbon from the atmosphere faster than almost anything else.
It is also naturally antibacterial, antiallergenic, biodegradable and renewable. But the actual process to turn it into fibre uses chemicals, so it’s not all sunshine and pandas. Due to its vast availability in Asia, bamboo is starting to rival cotton as a preferred fabric for undies.
SOYSILK: This is a relatively new, trademarked brand of yarn that’s made from the remnants of soybeans used during commercial tofu production, so it’s very eco-thrifty, if you will. It’s incredibly soft and lustrous – think of how soft silken tofu is in your udon. This isn’t new technology, though. Henry Ford is thought to have worn the first ‘soy suit’, and much of the upholstery in his original cars was made of soy fibre.
CORN: You know when you eat an ear of corn and you get all those husky little strands caught in your teeth? Some smarty-pants decided to spin those fibres together and create a light, resilient yarn. Corn is roughly around the weight of cotton, making it a goodie for warm-weather clothes, but it can be a bit itchy. On the plus side, corn contains very few chemicals and is quite eco-friendly. Brand names to look out for include A-MAIZING and the now-discontinued Cornucopia (which you can still dig up online).
RAMIE: This yarn isn’t very commonly known, but it’s popular among super-knitters. And though this might sound uncomfortable, it’s made out of plants from the nettle family. The material itself has a great sheen, is antibacterial, and has anti-mildew properties. For those reasons, it was used as burial cloth at ancient Egyptian funerals. Don’t think of it as mummifying, though – if it’s good enough for Cleopatra, it’s good enough for you.
RECYCLED: Some recycling companies like eco2cotton use the offcuts of commercial cotton clothing to spin more yarn. Think of it like making cookies – when you cut out a shape, you use the leftover dough to knead again and make another cookie. These peeps do the same for the material used in making clothes. If you’re willing to embrace looking like a tin of coloured confetti, you could also try Mango Moon yarns, spun from old and damaged saris.