Slow Living: Summer Yarns

This post is written by contributing author Laurie Fortier.

Do the seasons affect your crafting habits? You may associate knit and crochet with an image of a cozy fire and snow falling outside the window. While this is a possible image, and one I enjoy, knitting and crocheting do not have to be put away when the weather turns warmer. I live in a very cold climate with snow on the ground six months a year. So you can be sure that as soon as the snow is gone, I am outside cleaning my flower beds and getting ready for June, when I can plant my annuals! 

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But, do I give up knitting during this brief, summer respite? Not a chance! What is wonderful about the needle-arts is that they are portable. I can’t take my sewing machine to my son’s soccer game, but my knitting? You bet I can! The only difference between my winter and my summer knitting are the projects I make and the yarns I use.

We are extraordinarily lucky today to have many beautiful and eco-friendly yarns to choose from that are perfect for warm weather knitting. These are the yarns that I am going to tell you about in this post.

Cotton and flax are the two oldest plant fibers used in the production of clothing. Archaeologists have found pieces of linen 6000 years old and cotton dating back to 3000 B.C. Hemp is another very old plant traditionally used for making ropes. No, it is not the same thing as the Marijuana plant, but this resemblance gives hemp yarn a bad name!

Cotton

Cotton yarn is soft, absorbent, wears well and is machine washable. Buying organic cotton means that the plants were grown without chemicals and pesticides and less processing was used to produce the yarn.

Harvested Flax

Linen yarn, made from the flax plant, is 2 to 3 times stronger than cotton, highly absorbent and cool to wear.

Hemp

Hemp makes a fabric that is absorbent, cool, comfortable, antimicrobial, blocks UV rays and is machine washable.

Many of the new and exciting fibers are called “extruded” fibers because the plant material is liquefied, pushed through a spinneret and solidified to create fine fibers. 

Wood

Lyocel is made from wood pulp. It has a fluid, silky drape, is breathable, absorbent and machine washable. The commercial name is Tencel.

Seaweed

Seaweed is combined with lyocel to create a fabric that has a fluid, silky drape, is breathable, absorbent and machine washable. The commercial name is Seacell.

Bamboo

Bamboo is very sustainable. It is a grass (that grows like a weed!). Harvesting doesn't kill the plant. It has a fluid, silky drape, is soft and cool to wear, antimicrobial and resistant to UV rays.

Corn

Corn fiber is lighter than bamboo, has a beautiful drape, is soft and machine washable.

 

Soybean plant

Soy pulp, as an extract of tofu production, creates beautiful soft, smooth, breathable and antimicrobial fabrics that retain warmth like wool.

Milk yarn?

Milk – Did you say milk? But, milk isn’t a plant?! No, but a process similar to that used for extruded fibers is used to make milk yarn. It is an extraordinary fiber, beautifully soft and silky yet strong!

There you have it! A glimpse of some of these amazing fibers. One summer certainly won’t be enough to try them all!

Here is a list of just a few of the companies that produce these yarns.

• Be Sweet for bamboo, organic cotton, recycled cotton and more! 
• Green Mountain Spinnery for organic cotton and Tencel blends.
• Kollage for many combinations, corn, soy, milk, recycled demim and more! 
• Lanaknits for all things hemp. 
• South West Trading Company for bamboo and soysilk. 
• Tilli Tomas for a silk seacell blend.

So, how about it? Will you knit or crochet this summer? Do any of these yarns “tickle your fancy?”

The Yarn Garden by J. Marsh Michler, is the lovely book that I used as a reference for this post. It has beautiful patterns for all of these different plant fiber yarns.

Laurie Fortier has been a teacher of languages, psychology and pedagogy for over 26 years. Her passion for learning and sharing knowledge permeates everything she does. Her transition into blogging seems to be a natural step. She blogs about her love of knitting and natural fibers in addition to owning her own online yarn shop where supporting sustainable development guides all her business decisions. Connect to Laurie via twitter and facebook.