Knitting Your Vegetables

Vegetables are good to eat, but plant fibers are useful for more than excellent digestion. Jute and manila are still commonly used around the world for rope in this age of nylon and other synthetics. Reeds and grasses make up baskets and thatched roofs. Fibers from the flax plant become linen when spun, and the same plant gives us linseed oil, an ingredient in linoleum. Cotton, however, is the most widely used plant fiber for both woven and knitted cloth. Cotton is the raw material of Indonesian batik and American quilts as well as our everyday clothing - blue jeans, tee shirts, and just about every kind of under- and outerwear. It's also great for knitting and spinning!

You may have heard of Sally Fox. She grows natural colored cottons - browns, greens, rusts, beiges - suitable for handknitting, spinning, and both hand and industrial weaving. Sally spent years developing the plants for color and fiber length. Most of her cotton is certified organic as well, and the environmental benefits of not using toxic dyes to color fiber are significant. The most interesting part of her story is that larger cotton growing operations where she has lived don't like her business. I guess they're afraid her colored cotton will interbreed with their white cotton in some kind of plant miscegenation.

You can read more about Sally Fox and see pictures of natural colored cotton yarn at her company web site. I haven't bought any of this yarn, but I have spun the cotton sliver, and I think it's great. I'd recommend spending $4 for the yarn and sliver catalog, so you can get an idea what it's like to work with this fiber.

Another sample card for spinners, which includes flax and ramie as well as cotton, is available from Halcyon Yarn.

Those of you who knit will see some gorgeous blue denim yarn and photos of sweaters at the British site Bobbins. The Fiber Shop offers yarn and a pattern for the Cotton Rich Vest, made of Hayfield cotton/acrylic yarn. Elann Fibre Company is another source of cotton handknitting yarn. And you can find a wide variety of 100% cotton yarn, linens, and blends at your local yarn shop, as well as at discount houses.

Free pattern: Here's something new to me: cotton chenille yarn from Crystal Palace Yarns (love that red!). The same company is offering a free pattern on their web site for an irresistible bobbled purple chenille sweater.

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