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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.

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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 Linen Stitch Hot Pad

Linen stitch is one of my favorite knitting stitch patterns that, every time I use it in a project, I think about how I don’t use it often enough. 

It’s an easy stitch to make, with slip stitches done with the yarn held to the front of the work on the right/front side and to the back on the wrong/back side, which makes the strand of yarn a visible part of the pattern. 

It also makes a fabric that is thick and looks kind of like a woven fabric.

I recently used linen stitch to make a double-thick pot holder, which I worked in a kind of interesting way. I didn’t want to have to do any sewing on the project, so I started it from a crochet cast on and picked up stitches from the side of the cast on to make the hot pad all in one piece in the round with the edge sealed. 

This requires working on two circular needles, which is another technique I don’t use that often and am always reminded how much I like it when I do. 

The combination of double thickness and the stitch pattern makes for a hot pad that’s already pretty thick, but I also added a bit of old towel to the inside before I closed up the end to make it super thick and extra protective for your surfaces. 

I found the engineering challenge of this construction method to be a lot of fun, but you could also just knit it as a tube (casting on twice as many stitches as I did) and sew up the ends by hand when the knitting is done. Either way you’ve got a useful and pretty addition to your kitchen, whether you work it in a solid color, stripes or as a stash busting project will all your cotton odd balls. 

You can grab the pattern over at Our Daily Craft, or check it out on Ravelry. 

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