My knitting’s totally gone down the tubes since my mice-knitting days, but I did manage to knit a scarf –
Unfortunately, nothing about it is eco — except for the handkit part. I bought the mohair yarn in a moment of weakness –
But at least it’s wrapped greenly. Look at my prettily eco-wrapped gifts this year!
Did you knit anything this year? Link me to it –
alcohol arizona art/lit/music bars beauty beverlyhills bicycle books boston burbank bus/rail caffeine carfreemondays challenges chicago clicklist consumerism cooperstown culvercity de-car-ing denver eco-fugly emeraldcity environment events fairtrade fashion feminist/politics film food freebies garden greenLAgirl healthcare holiday hollywood knitting longbeach losangeles malibu music nocal organic pasadena plastic poetry questions quote restaurants santamonica shermanoaks solutions starbuckschallenge stlouis survey travel tv vannuys venice washingtondc water web/tech westhollywood westwood
http://www.notforsheep.org/2007/10/currently_knitted.html
That’s what I knitted last year. The one on the left was a Christmas gift to my mom, and the right was a holiday gift to a blawger who was being treated for breast cancer. (It started out as a hat, but I didn’t pay attention and it morphed into a scarf.)
The yarn is an acrylic/wool mix (so it’s not eco either), but I loved the colors of the one on the right so much that I had to get it.
But what would constitute an eco yarn? Would alpaca yarn from a mom-and-pop outfit count (the fiber being bred, born, sheared, carded, spun, and dyed on the premises)?
Comment by Katherine — January 3, 2008 @ 8:46 pm
Hey Katherine — Funny about a hat morphing into a scarf! An eco yarn, defined widely, would be any reclaimed yarn, organic cotton or bamboo yarn, or natural wool that hasn’t been chemically treated. Yes, hand-harvested alpaca yarn is eco — you can find some here!
Comment by Siel — January 3, 2008 @ 11:06 pm
Thanks Siel–in that case, I do have a sort of eco-ish yarn… I pulled apart a wool sweater for its yarn (I never wore the sweater anyway) and now have a half-started blanket square. (What can I say? Grad school is kicking my bootay.)
I didn’t know that there is such a thing as bamboo yarn, but it is probably mad expensive.
By chemical treatment - does that mean the process of dying it? or is something more [sinister] involved?
I do prefer hand-dyed/painted yarns over the ones in the stores, but that’s just a personal preference…
Comment by Katherine — January 4, 2008 @ 8:39 am