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Advice for Knitting When You Have Natural Hair

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If you’re a person of color with natural hair, something you need to think about when knitting hats is the fiber content of the yarn used, because the yarns typically called for — think wool and other animal fibers — aren’t great when paired with natural hair.

That’s because the scales on animal fibers tend to be grabby, which can damage natural hair. Plant-based fibers suck up moisture, which is the last thing you want when you’ve worked so hard to get moisture into your hair.

Yolanda McNair did a lot of research into the qualities of different natural and human-made fibers to determine what might be best for her natural hair, and she share the results over on Knit’s All Folks.

You’ll have to click over to find out the best fibers to choose and her other tips and suggestions for knitting for natural hair. If you have any other tips I’d love to hear them!

[Photo: Knit’s All Folks.]

 

Comments

  1. Hello! While I appreciate you linking to my website, please rethink the language you use here. Your phrasing “Most of us probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the fiber we use to knit hats in terms of how it will react with our hair,” – implies that “most” of the knitters who might read this blog are white – and that most knitters aren’t people of color. It (hopefully) unintentionally excludes the POC I hope to promote on my website.

  2. You’re right, of course, and yes, it was completely unintentional on my part to be exclusive. I should have said as a white woman it isn’t something I have to think about. Thanks for the kind reminder to choose my words more thoughtfully.

Have you read?

Classic Dishcloth Knitting Patterns

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use. 

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make. 

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!). 

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn. 

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart. 

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern. 

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.