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Yarn From Milk?

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This Spring, [tag]South West Trading Company[/tag] released the [tag]Vickie Howell Collection[/tag], a set of three types of yarn. These are [tag]Craft[/tag], made of 35% [tag]Milk Fiber[/tag] and 65% Organic Cotton; [tag]Rock[/tag], made of 40% [tag]Soysilk[/tag], 30% fine [tag]wool[/tag], and 30% [tag]hemp[/tag]; and [tag]Love[/tag], made of 70% [tag]Bamboo[/tag] and 30% [tag]Silk[/tag].

According to [tag]Knitting News Cast[/tag] review of the milk fiber yarn, the organic cotton has a softness and a wonderful drape due to the presence of the 35% milk fiber.

Stefanie Japel of [tag]Glampyre Knits[/tag] used both the Craft and the Rock in creating patterns for SWTC. She mentioned that she liked the yarns and loved the way they worked up.

Other than stores that sell the products, I haven’t been able to find any sites, blogs or usenets that have mentioned these yarns. They really sound like a wonderful addition to the yarn world and would certainly help those who are allergic to wool have additional choices in fiber.

Comments please if you have found the Vickie Howell Collection yarns at your LYS.

Comments

  2. Thanks Rhonda. I wanted to find more opinions of the yarn also. No one is writing comments on the ‘net about the yarn. Is it because it is hard to get, too expensive, or is everyone in the pool? 🙂

    Laura

Have you read?

Knit a Log Cabin Blanket with All Your Scraps

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn. 

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small. 

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches. 

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come. 

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you. 

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?). 

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry. 

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns. 

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]