I am going to start this blog with a family experience.
My mom liked to knit for the family. One day she knitted for me a seamless sweater in one piece.
It was a yellow sweater; I still remember it, a “flashy” yellow, all my nieces laughed at the color of the sweater, it was noticeable from a kilometer away, that bright yellow, which almost hurts your retina.
I wore it, despite the color, because I didn't want to make my mother feel bad after so many hours of knitting.
The problem with the sweater is that the sleeves were getting big, HUGE! In addition, the back began to lengthen. I gave up on wearing the sweater when it was definitely at least two sizes bigger than me.
What happened? Why did it get so big? Probably this situation has happened to you or you know someone to whom it has happened.
Most likely, my mom didn't know how yarn would react over time, with wear, with washes, even just hanging in my wardrobe.
What happened to my mother is what a knitter often does not take into account; I call it “the essence of the fiber”.
The essence of the fiber has to do with its origin, with the animal that provided it or the plant from which it was extracted.
Let's go by parts. In the world of fibers there is something known as "fiber memory". If we could classify fibers within a large graph, we would make two large divisions: one for vegetable fibers and the other for protein or animal fibers.
Within each division there are several subgroups, two of them would be the fibers with the highest memory and the other with less or little memory.
You ask yourself now, what is that about memory in yarn? Think of a person's hair. One of the worst enemies for someone with curly hair is water, perhaps the person spent hours straightening their hair, once she leaves her house and bang !, it starts to rain, her hair begins to plump up and curl again. This is called memory, the return to its natural state.
The fleece is the hair of the animal (sheep, goat, buffalo, camel, rabbit, etc.), which by nature has its own memory and its own elasticity.
Fibers with low memory tend to elongate, gain more elasticity than others, hence we sometimes end up with unexpected results.
The alpaca, for example, from the Llama, has little memory and much more elasticity than the wool of any sheep. Alpaca is very soft, very comfortable to wear, an alpaca scarf or cowl is a delight, something very comfortable that keeps you warm.
However, knitting a 100% alpaca sweater will have the same problem as my mom’s sweater; it will become so big that you won't be able to wear it. That is why it is so important to read the label of your yarn. If you combined the alpaca with wool (at least 50% sheep wool), it will help the alpaca, then your knitting will not become a huge tent.1
If you like vegetable fibers such as cotton, always consider that cotton does not have its own memory and elasticity, so be careful if you think of knitting a pair of cotton socks (100%), since they will soon fall off from your leg or foot, no matter how you knit them, tight, loose, etc.
A very pleasant fiber to knit and wear, for example, is silk, although it has an excellent memory, it does not have much elasticity, and if it is combined with another fiber (for example, wool), you will have a great result, a blend of silk and wool provides a nice balance to give drape and structure.
Yarns that are machine washable are a bit risky. When you read the label "machine washable" on a yarn, it means that the yarn has gone through a whole process to make it a machine washable yarn. The change processes differ from one to another, some fibers lose a large part of their natural structure, in general, they become very elastic, so I always recommend knitting a swatch, washing this swatch, hanging it to dry and at the end see how much change. This exercise will allow you to avoid surprises in your knitting.
Remember: you cannot go against the essence of the fiber, you have to be in harmony with it, accept its elasticity and its memory that it naturally possesses. Choosing your project based on its own nature will allow you to obtain better results.
Now, I can tell you why natural fibers interest me more than any other: because they connect me with their essence, with the animal or plant from which they come. Once I knit a shawl with buffalo yarn, I was shocked to feel how the fiber smelled of buffalo. The scent of the animal was so great that I could visualize it in one of the great prairies of Calgary, Canada in the middle of a cold winter.
When I knitted a cashmere scarf, I was surprised to feel how it is a fiber so delicate and at the same time so resistant, I imagined mountain goats sheltering from the immense cold where they live thanks to the cashmere that they produce by themselves.
The First Nations peoples believe that the person, who wears the clothing of an animal, assumes the spirit of the animal with all the properties that it possesses, which makes a lot of sense, at least to me, when you feel that connection between nature and your fiber.
Happy reading,
Maria.
1There are many more factors to decide which fiber could be the best choice for your project, for example: the texture, the definition, if you want to stick with cooler, lighter weight fibers, etc. I will address this topic in another blog since each element requires its own explanation.
November 24, 2020
What is wool? How to define this material that invites us to imagine what our hands can create with it?
The wool invites us to travel, to recreate a moment of calm, of quietness, to live that moment where we feel at one with it.
Wool allows us to think of others, in our family, to remember those who are probably no longer present: our grandmother, our mother, perhaps an aunt, a friend, to give unique gifts, to make gifts of charity, making friends, talking with our neighbors, etc.
The wool seduces more than one knitter/crocheter. One skein of wool becomes an invitation to creation.
However, our dream sometimes takes an unexpected way. We don't always get the result we want, sometimes we get close, sometimes we don't, and what is worse we don't understand why it didn't work. We go to the yarn shop hoping to find help but we end up getting more confused by the seller explanations or by her advises. Sometimes, we buy another yarn crossing our fingers, hoping that this time it will work.
It’s for this reason that I decided to create this section. From experience, I know that it’s a bit difficult to decide which material may be appropriate for the perfect combination between project and wool.
It is also difficult to have and understand all the information necessary to make a good decision, avoiding sadness or frustrations.
My goal is not that we end up being experts when it comes to wool; but we do have a better idea of what to buy, that we feel more comfortable in knowing what we are going to knit / to crochet with that skein that we love.
How many times have you knitted and you have no idea of the origin of the wool you have worked with? Have you ever wondered how the wool you have in your hands was made? When you go to the yarn shop, you understand everything the saleswoman tells you, do you understand all the instructions that the label says?
Today, we will talk in a little more detail about some characteristics of wool, some concepts that are not so clear in our mind, and some others that perhaps we did not know.
Let's start by trying to answer this question: what is wool?
Wool is a textile fiber, of completely natural origin. For its creation it is only necessary to have a certain number of happy sheep’s,1 living in a pasture, eating and developing healthily.
In addition to being a natural product, wool has very interesting properties that make it one of a kind. Among them are:
RENEWABLE. Every year, the sheep provide us with their wool. The amount of wool that can be obtained annually will, of course, depend on the type of sheep that provided us with it.
HYGROSCOPIC. Wool has the property of absorbing moisture from the environment and releasing it when the environment returns to being dry. That is why clothing made entirely of wool offers a sensation of heat even when the weather is cold outside.
INSULATING. While synthetic fibers are known to be highly flammable, wool does extinguish fire in its own flock. It is no accident that firefighters use wool blankets. Of course, a wool baby blanket is a guarantee of durability, comfort and, above all, safety.
LOW CONDUCTIVE STATIC ELECTRICITY. Its high internal humidity index causes it to be a low static conductor. Thanks to this, the dust does not stick easily to it, which is good news for those who suffer from allergies.
INFINITELY VARIED. There are as many types of wool on the market as there is diversity of sheep in the world.
Knowing its properties, we understand better why we choose to knit with wool, right? Finally, let's look at some terms that we hear many times and that are not always clear to everyone.
THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE FIBERS
Surely, you have ever heard that the world is mainly divided into plant world, animal world and mineral world.
This division is also valid for fibers; there are vegetable fibers, known as cellulosic fibers, animal fibers, called protein fibers and mineral fibers (the latter are used mainly in industry).
This classification must include the fibers created in the laboratory by man, that is, synthetic fibers.
Before continuing, I clarify a few terms:
Fiber is the material that makes up a natural or synthetic yarn.2
Wool is basically the hair of the sheep or some other animal that provides us with it.
Yarn is a spun thread made of natural or synthetic fibers, used for knitting.
A skein is the commercial presentation of the fiber.
Micron is the unit of measurement for fiber diameter. The lower this number is, the finer and softer the fiber will be.
THE PROTEIN FIBERS
Protein fibers are all those of animal origin. In concrete words, protein fibers are the hair that grows in animals; these can be sheep, buffalo, camels, Yaks, Ox’s, Angora rabbits, etc. All protein fibers have the same chemical composition: keratin, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur.3
CELLULOSE FIBERS
Cellulose fibers are derived from plants, from the cellulose that they naturally produce. Cotton is undoubtedly the best known fiber worldwide. It is also the fiber with the highest cellulose content (95%); the rest is water (5%).
Other popular plant fibers are flax, hemp, and bamboo. In recent years, seaweed fiber has gradually started to gain its place in the market.
SYNTHETIC FIBERS
Synthetic fibers are just that, synthetic, produced in the laboratory. The fact of being created and designed allows people to have more control in both its texture and its color.
There is a great variety of them on the market; their price is much lower than any natural fiber. They are mostly used to learn our first knitting stitches or our first crocheting steps.
The main problem with these fibers is that in the process of their production, particles known as VOCs (volatile organic compounds) are created. These compounds in addition to being volatile are fat soluble, toxic and flammable. They contribute greatly to the pollution of the environment by smog.
Among the synthetic fibers are semi-synthetic or cellulosic fibers. They receive this name because cellulose and other chemical solutions are used in their production. Its generic name is rayon. Probably more than one knitter has had in her hands a skein with the label that says "viscose" or with the name of "lyocell or tencel", all these fibers are part of the rayon group.
I hope that with this brief information, you know a little more about the yarn you already have in your hands. In my next blog, I will talk a little more about the different kinds of wool and the importance of knowing how to choose the most suitable for that project that you want to do so much.
To conclude, I leave you with the following question: now that you have an idea of the different fibers on the market, which do you plan to choose for your next project?
Happy knitting / crocheting,
Maria.
1In this section I refer mainly to sheep, although not only do they provide us with wool, also rabbits, camels, buffaloes, yaks, etc. and a large number of other animals provide us with wool.
2In this blog, I will only refer to fiber from its definition as a natural or synthetic material with which you can create garments. I won’t refer to it as the material with which cars, paper, cosmetics, food, medical equipment, etc. can be created.
3Among protein fibers, silk lends itself a bit to discussion, since it is extracted from the silkworm, but it feeds on plants, strictly speaking silk would be a fiber that is found in the middle of protein fibers and of vegetable fibers. However, to avoid discussion, silk is classified within protein fibers.