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Yarn types like cotton, cashmere, merino, wool and luxury yarns
Animal knitting yarns:
Wool comes
from a domesticated sheep. Wool accepts dye well, is flame-retardant by
nature, remains warm even when wet, sheds water better than other yarns.
Natural wool should be hand-washed. 'Superwash' wool has been treated to
allow machine washing. Wool will usually resume its proper shape when
washed correctly; if it is mistreated and washed in too-hot water, it
will shrink or felt.
Mohair comes from an Angora goat. Mohair
is durable, sheds dirt, dyes well and does not felt easily. Despite its
hardiness, it is usually spun into knitting yarn used for fluffy garments and
scarves. This knitting yarn is abraded, roughing its fibers to create that 'fuzzy'
look.
Angora comes from rabbits. Fabric made
from this yarn is inelastic, very fluffy, soft and warm.
Silk is the yarn produced by silk moths.
Silk knitting yarn is made from damaged silk cocoons and broken fibers.
'Raw' silk still has the original moth secretions in it. 'Tussah,' silk
obtained from wild moths is brown. The food fed to domesticated moths
determines their silk's natural color; this can white, green or yellow.
Silk retains heat, absorbs moisture, pills less than wool, is very
strong and very stable when knit, neither shrinking or stretching.
Cashmere comes from the undercoat of a
Cashmere goat. It is so expensive because only a few ounces are obtained
from each goat per year. It is such a delicate yarn, more fragile than
wool and more susceptible to abrasion, that it is usually blended with
wool to make it more durable.
Camel comes from the two-humped or
Bactrian camel. Camel hair cannot be bleached, so it is either used
undyed or dyed a darker color. It is lightweight and fragile.
Vicuna comes from the vicuna, a South
American relative of the camel. They are rounded up once a year and
shorn like llamas or sheep; their hair is finer than any other animal
yarn.
Alpaca is a smaller relative of the llama
but its hair is more commercially valuable. Knitting yarn does not felt or pill easily. It comes in fifteen natural colors (as do the
alpacas) and is denser than wool . The undercoat of a llama is very similar to alpaca hair.
Qiviut (kiv-ee-uht) the yarn itself is very
hard to find. It comes from a musk ox and resembles pale gray cashmere
but does not shrink.
The appearance of a garment is also affected by the weight of the yarn,
which describes the thickness of the spun fiber. The thicker the yarn,
the more visible and apparent stitches will be; the thinner the yarn,
the finer the texture.
Color
Plenty of finished knitting projects never use more than a single color
of yarn, but there are many ways to work in multiple colors. Some yarns
are dyed to be either variegated (changing color every few stitches in
a random fashion) or self-striping (changing every few rows). More
complicated techniques permit large fields of color (intarsia, for
example), busy small-scale patterns of color (such as Fair Isle), or
both (double knitting and slip-stitch color, for example).
Yarn with multiple shades of the same hue are called ombre, while a yarn
with multiple hues may be known as a given colorway — a green, red and
yellow yarn might be dubbed the "Parrot Colorway" by its manufacturer,
for example. Heathered yarns contain small amounts of fiber of different
colors, while tweed yarns may have greater amounts of different
colored fibers.
Vegetable knitting yarns:
Cotton comes from surrounding the seeds
in a cotton pod. Cotton is heavy, dense and inelastic; although it will regain its shape
after washing, its ability to do so decreases over time. It is
comfortable to wear in a cool climate but not a hot one (the opposite of
wool) and is slow to dry once wetted. It makes a weaker knitting yarn than silk
or linen but is stronger than wool.
Linen comes from the flax plant. It is
durable and stronger than any other yarn. It absorbs moisture better than
cotton and dries more quickly, making it more comfortable to wear than
cotton in hot temperatures. It is easier to wash than wool and does not
stretch or shrink.
Ramie is made from nettles It is often used
as a substitute for linen since it is less expensive but shares linen's
good qualities.
Rayon is a yarn produced from natural
ingredients by artificial means.
Rayon is a weak fiber but it is absorbent, dries
quickly, and stretches (although it does recover some when dried in a
automatic dryer.)
Synthetic knitting yarns:
Nylon is lightweight, strong, elastic,
resists abrasion, does not stretch or shrink (except at high
temperatures,) and is easy to wash. It is usually combined with wool to
impart its strength and elasticity to the wool.
Polyester is the most common type of
synthetic yarn. Yarn made from it retains its shape. It adds strength
and resilience to natural yarns. Polyester is very easy to wash and is
more comfortable to wear than many other synthetics.
Acrylic is the most common synthetic in
knitting yarns. They are resilient, moderately strong, somewhat
inelastic, feel good to the hand and are light in weight. Acrylics are
easily made to imitate natural yarns so they are sold as alternatives
to wool. However, acrylics cannot wick away moisture from the body so
their warmth diminishes when wet. The yarn burns readily unless treated
and will shrink in moist heat. Acrylics are often used to achieve novel
textures and characteristics that are not available with natural yarns.
Metallic
yarn (described above) is best used
as a 'knit-along' with another, stronger yarn.
Fuzzy yarns obscure a stitch pattern but
are warmer and cozier, although they wear less well and often shed like
a St. Bernard in a Georgia summer.
Novelty yarns are ones with an unusual
texture, color or appearance that comes through differences in its ply
sizes, the combinations of its fibers or some variation in its spinning.
Slub knitting yarn has a textured, lumpy surface. It
has a smooth ply and one that was spun unevenly, which creates 'slubs'
or lumps in the ply.
Crepe knitting yarn has tiny bumps.
Boucle knitting yarn has its smooth ply so tightly twisted that it curls around
the slub ply.
Roving, mentioned above, is loosely spun
wool. It is a weak knitting yarn and can pull apart while being knit. Once made
up, the fabric itself holds the fibers together; although warm, the
fabric will pill, abrade and does not wear well.
Eyelash or fur knitting yarn has long filaments
grouped along its length. When the yarn is knitted, these filaments
stick out from the fabric and give it a furry look.
Chenille is cut from a specially woven
fabric. It twists while being knit because it has no oppositely-twisted
plies to counteract the twist imparted by the knitting. It sheds from
its cut edges.
Ribbon yarn is just that: thin ribbon used
for knitting. Although most knitters let the yarn twist as it may, fine
ribbon-knitting keeps each stitch as flat and smooth as possible.
The length and quality of the
fiber in a knitting yarn determines its texture, luster, strength and
hand. Knitting yarn made from long fibers will pill less, be smoother,
stronger, more lustrous and more elastic. Yarns containing a mixture of
fiber lengths are softer, fuzzier and less strong. Tightly twisted
knitting yarns display the texture of a knitted pattern to its best
advantage.
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