Orphan Love

One of my husband's co-workers found out that I was a knitter when she saw him carrying around an iPod sock I'd made for him. A few months later she asks him if I'd be interested in some yarn that she had from when she herself tried taking up knitting. She had no need for it anymore because knitting didn't really stick for her.

Of course I said yes to her yarn. I'm not some sort of monster who'd let perfectly good yarn end up in a landfill or something. So husband-man brought home a whole plastic tote worth of this orphaned yarn for me. It's not the kind of yarn I generally gravitate towards in stores, but I feel an obligation to try to make something suiting out of every kind of yarn I have. And so here is what I recently made out of one of the orphaned skeins I received:



The yarn used for this chain link scarf is acrylic, and ends up being great for this purpose because it keeps the links in a wonderful oval shape, and the scarf is still quite comfy, not to mention stylish!



Do you use any orphaned materials you come across or are given? I'd love to hear about what they are, where they're from, and what you turn them into!

~ShutterKate

Knitting is B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

Especially when you knit with yarn MADE from banana fibers, like this beautiful skein from blondechicken...


"This unusual yarn is handspun from recycled banana fibers. The fibers are collected by women in Nepal from the remnants from the sari weaving looms. They sort it by color and handspin the fibers and sell it through fair trade co-ops that provide educational opportunities. Banana fiber was extracted from banana trees (bananière , in French)-mostly their stems and leaves. When it comes to my home, I dye it in soft shades that aren't offered by the co-op. Bananiere is an incredibly strong yarn and will knit into beautiful (and unique) bags and shawls."

The Craftiest Yarn Around

In some lovely orange and grey. CraftyYarn always knows how to recycle yarn just the way I like it:

Dark gray wool blended with light blue soysilk for a soft, steely gray blend, with orange mohair accents throughout. Contains mill end fiber and soysilk (made from a by-product of tofu manufacture) -- 100% recycled content.

~EcoKate

Conscious Knitting

If you're a knitter or crocheter and you care about the future of our planet, it may have crossed your mind more than once where a lot of your yarns come from, and how they are made. Go into any Michael's craft store and browse around in the yarn section, checking the labels of random brands and you'll find that 99% of the yarns being sold have some sort of synthetic fiber in them. Even the yarns made of 100% wool or cotton can seem a bit iffy because of the practices used to create them. This tends to bug me, more and more especially ever since I've found that there are eco-friendly alternatives out there!

Today I'd like to feature one of those alternatives, a store on Etsy called Crafty Yarn. I've used this store for a few months now, and have bought a plethora of recycled yarns from her, which I have found to be not only weight-lifting on my conscience, but a pleasantly diverse and unique variety of yarn types that I could never have bought from a chain box store to begin with!


This is yarn recycled (unraveled) from a gently used, high quality sweater. This is a really special yarn - it's unusual to find silk in such a thick weight, and the color is awesome.

There's plenty more of these one-of-a-kind yarns in her shop to check out! And what a great way to make for some guilt-free fiber crafting!