My mother tells the tale of her early crocheting adventures in the language of limited yarn choice. There was wool, there was acrylic, and there was cotton. It came in various weights, but those were pretty much her choices. She bought her yarn at the five-and-ten or the discount store, not at the local yarn store. She bought exactly how much she needed for the project she wanted to do (plus one skein for extra in case she ran out), and when one thing was finished, she saved up and bought the yarn for the next. She didn’t acquire yarn as I do—it was something you needed, not something you lusted after. Mom would no more collect yarn than she would, I don’t know, plastic wrap. There just weren’t enough choices to make yarn double as a collectible item.
A few years back I took her to a beautiful yarn store near her home. I had a project in mind and wanted to buy some yarn for it (as opposed to using four of the hundreds of skeins in my stash, but I digress). I still remember the look on her face as she sat there looking around the store at all the colors, weights, and fibers. This particular store is airy and open and extremely well lit, so the cases of yarn look like museum displays—each one containing something more eye-catching than the last. She still didn’t buy anything (although I succumbed to some cashmere/merino blend), but she greatly enjoyed the trip.
Her wonder at the huge variety of fibers available got me to thinking about what yarn is made from. The plant fibers are pretty easy to identify—cotton and linen, right? Oops, there’s also rayon (from cellulose, which is wood fiber), corn or soy fiber, ramie (which is related to nettles, but as a yarn has no sting), and I guess all those seaweed/kelp/sea silk fibers would be plant based, too. Of course, within the plant family you have a lot of choices between organically raised, organically produced, and traditionally produced items, and dyed or undyed colorways. Still, a plant is a plant.
Then there are the animal fibers. Generally, I think if you can look at a yarn label and get a mental image of the cute little fuzzy animal whose back it came from, you are doing a fine job. Sheep give us wool, but these days wool is indentified in some cases not just as wool, but as coming from a specific breed—merino comes to mind, as does Blue-Faced Leicester, Corriedale, and Rambouillet (actually Rambouillet sounds like it should be the star of a sheepy action film, but again I digress). Then there is angora (the rabbit kind), angora (the goat kind), mohair (also from goats), llama, alpaca (my favorite), and qiviut (which would be my favorite if I could afford more than an ounce a year). Some intrepid folks spin dog hair, but I don’t want to buy any of that—I keep thinking the wet sheep smell I get when my minimally processed wool sweater gets caught in the rain is one thing, but wet dog smell would be quite another thing …
For some yarns, you get not only the animal breed but also the animal’s name. I have some 100 percent Bob in the closet and recently purchased a Josie/Gracie/Bonnie blend. Since I spin, too, I am about to make some Harrison and some Miss Velvet just as soon as I have the time. This is pretty cool because not only can you picture a cute, fuzzy animal, but you can also picture a specific cute, fuzzy animal that you might have gotten to pet.
Even acrylic yarns have gotten into the act with the type of acrylic specified on the label—as if that makes a difference to me. It pretty much doesn’t; in my mind acrylic is a crylic no matter what its subspecies. Dralon? Sounds like a villain from Star Trek.
But now there are yarns out there that I am not sure exactly what part of the plant or animal family they came from. I have sock yarn with Chitin in it (it comes from shellfish and has some antibacterial properties, but I am not sure how they get fluffy yarn out of hard shells), milk fiber (again, huh?), and I have a skein of yarn sitting right next to me that says 100 percent vinyl, and underneath in small letters, Yarn not edible. Okay, it’s called Jelly Yarn, but still, would I put this on my sandwich?
Actually, crab, milk, corn, jelly—lunch is not sounding like a bad idea right now. I can crochet a little after I have my snack. But I promise not to eat the yarn—it’s too pretty anyway.