Introduction to Yarn Fiber Types

Introduction to Yarn Fiber Types - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. Yarn comes in many different fibers, so you have a lot of choices depending on the project that you want to make. Good choices for people who have allergies to wool or different animals are things like cotton and bamboo. If you have something that is striped, it is great to make a baby dress or something like that because babies tend to be sensitive. The linen is also a good choice. It tends to be a little rougher before you wash it, but then once you wash it drapes and becomes really soft and beautiful. Another good thing for draping would be mohair or silk. They tend to drape and hang and they come in a lot of beautiful, different colors and textures. You can get things that sparkle. You can get things that have a little bit of a loft if you need that. Another fiber that tends to be lofty is alpaca. Alpaca usually has a really beautiful sheen and when you knit with it, it is very, very warm so you tend to not want to make anything really big and bulky. But you can make something smaller like mittens or hats or even a sweater that has shorter sleeves. Angora is very good for babies because it is incredibly soft. Better for smaller projects. It takes a lot to get angora from a rabbit, so you get a small amount of angora and make a tiny project with it, it is perfect. We now have t-shirt yarn, which they take old t-shirts, they cut them up and then they strand them and wind them into a hank of yarn and you can actually knit with that which is great for a summer project. Your basic yarn, yarn you will probably find everywhere is the marina wool and you can get marina wool in solids and you can get it in stripes. Most marina wools, I mean good marina wools, are super washables where you can put them in the machine. Usually machine wash cold, lay it flat to dry, they do very well. And you can also hold them together if you want something that is more verigated. Then we have stuff that is coming up now, which is really interesting, is silk mixed with sea cell, which actually comes from seaweed, and has really good anti-microbial properties. It is very good at wicking sweat away from the skin. So you can make really interesting things with this. Shawls, t-shirts, things that are really good for summer weather. Lastly, you have the really textured stuff. Stuff like mohair, stuff that has sequins in it. These are great for big shawls or as accents on smaller projects like gloves, or maybe trimming on a hat or maybe the bottom of a sweater. Those are our fibers.