The recycle symbol tells us to reduce – reuse – recycle. We can use this is many areas of life…but knitting? While there are examples of reduce and reuse in knitting (who hasn’t frogged a project?), let’s concentrate on recycle.
Yarn companies have created wonderful yarns blending recycled fibers. Here are a few of the new ones we currently have on the shelves:
Renew
Rowan Purelife Renew is a tweedy, chunky yarn comprised of 93% recycled wool and 7% polyamide. It knits up at 3½ stitches per inch on US 10 needles with 82 yards in a skein. We carry the entire color palette of eight choices with such quirky names as Tractor, Trailor, Pickup, Garage, Diesel, Digger, Truck and Lorry. The yarn colors don’t seem nearly that industrial to me, but you’ll have to judge for yourself!
Revive
Rowan Purelife Revive is a dk weight yarn with 137 yards per skein. The Rowan website describes it as “made from used garments which have been selected according to the silk, cotton and viscose content. These are then carded to make regenerated fibre, which is then spun into this beautiful, high quality yarn, which gives life to new hand knitting designs.” The fiber content is 36% recycled silk, 36% recycled cotton and 28% recycled viscose. We have all of the available colors – Quartz, Pink Granite, Ironstone, Marble, Granite, Basalt, Rock and Pumice – on our shelf, waiting to be reused in a project for you.
Remix
Berroco Remix is a blend of 30% nylon, 27% cotton, 24% acrylic, 10% silk and 9% linen that knits up to a heavy worsted weight gauge of 4¼ stitches per inch on US 8 needles. The Berroco website explains how this new yarn is made: “a new, 100% recycled yarn made using a low-impact manufacturing process patented in France. Remix is the result of over a year of collaborative work between mill and textile engineers. Garments and high-quality commercially knit fabric panels left over from the ready-to-wear industry are collected from across Europe and sorted by fiber, then color. Because these pieces are pre-dyed, there is no need to dye them again, which saves water and prevents water pollution. Instead, colors are created by carefully blending garnetted fibers. Garnetted fiber is the result of shredding old textiles to make a new, fleece-like fiber that is ready to be spun into a new yarn.
A tweedy, rustic look makes this an ideal candidate for casual knits, and its machine washability means any garment will be low maintenance and hard-wearing. Finished garments are immediately cozy, with the feeling of well-loved jeans or your favorite old tee-shirt.” We carry all twelve of the tweedy colors in skeins with 216 yards.
With dk, worsted and chunky options available,
there is a recycled yarn ready to be used in your next sweater project this fall!
