Material of the Month: Linen

This month, I will be talking about another natural fiber: linen. Unlike with wool, I don't have much experience working with linen. I haven't ever processed raw flax, and I have only really worked with one linen yarn. But, since I am currently finishing up a linen shawl, I thought it would be a good material for December. I guess I will give my first impressions.

First, and most obviously, linen is a plant-based fiber. It is derived from flax:

A field of blooming flax

Flax is a grass. To make it into linen, you take the 3- to 4-foot-tall plants and dry them. After beating them to remove the seeds, you place them in stagnant or slow-moving water to rot away the outer parts of the plant. You then dry them, crush them, scrape them, and comb them, until they are ready to be spun. As I mentioned above, I have never tried any of this. I might try spinning it at some point, but since I'd have to isolate it from my wool (for religious reasons), it might have to wait until I have a larger place.

Linen is rarely used for knitting, and, after making two projects with it, I can see why. It doesn't stretch at all - whatever the tension you put into the stitch, that is what it will stay, and you will hurt your wrists and fingers trying to get the next stitch in. It doesn't grip itself either, so it will easily slip off needles or pull out into a loop on the fabric. It is stiff too - when you fold it, the stitches will often slide past each other, rather than bending.

Pretty much the worst technique you can use with linen is mosaic knitting - or maybe cables. Because  both require that the stitches stretch out to multiple rows, and be larger after you have already set the tension, attempting to do them with linen will kill your hands. With wool, it will stretch easily, then settle back later, giving texture. With linen, you have to fight the yarn to get it to do what you want.

And this is why I know you should avoid mosaic knitting with linen

Ok, so those are the disadvantages of linen. Why would you ever use it?

Well, first off, the stiffness and un-stretchiness can be an asset in crochet, and definitely are in weaving. Although I haven't tried it, I hear that it is a dream to weave with.

Secondly, when spun wet, the yarn is beautiful, smooth, and soft.

Louet Euroflax yarn

The fabric it creates is light and airy, and feels good on the skin. It is smooth and washes easily. And it becomes more supple as it ages and gets washed. There is a reason that tablecloths and sheets are called "linens." It does tend to wrinkle, so it needs frequent ironing, but it makes good, firm, fabric, especially for summer use.

Speaking of summer use, I did almost finish my linen summer shawl today. Something about the pattern of colors reminded me of a snake, so I called it a snakeskin shawl. I was using big needles with a simple pattern, so it knit up in a little over a month.

Even aside from using three colors in the shawl instead of two, I ended up modifying the pattern pretty heavily. It was supposed to be a right-triangle shawl, where you knit from one corner, growing by a stitch every other row, until you are knitting the entire other side of the shawl. But it was getting too wide for me - I wanted something a bit more scarf-like. So I added a SSK decrease to the rows that were supposed to be growing, and turned it into a crescent shawl. I also added a black border at the neck to make it more sturdy.

Ok, one more thing about linen. It is really important to block it, because the stitches need to be evened out and "wrinkled" so that they will stay in the places you put them. So that is what I did today.

Snakeskin shawl, pre-blocking:

Notice how the elongated stitches are not lying flat before wet-blocking

And wet and pinned to a towel for blocking:

The end of the shawl where it "grew" every other row

The end of the shawl where I added the extra SSK

Material of the Month: Wool

Today, I am starting a new feature here on the blog: material of the month. Each month, I will try to talk about some of the features and advantages (as well as the downsides) of a different material I have worked with. I guess we'll see how long I can keep it up until I run out of materials.

So, to start: wool.

Wool is a natural fiber (naturally) and has been used since ancient times to make cloth and textiles. Traditionally, wool was a warm but rather rough material, good for outer-wear like sweaters and coats, or hard-wearing textiles like rugs and tapestries.

However, starting with Merino sheep in the 18th Century, breeds with softer wool have been developed that produce wool without that prickly feeling. When the breed was first developed by the Spanish, Merino sheep were highly prized and nearly impossible to get if you weren't royalty - historical novel writers take note: soft wool was not really a thing that average people had access to.

Today, of course, merino wool is quite common, and is usually the only breed that will be identified by name if you are buying wool yarn. It is very soft and squishy, but knitters beware: it lacks the strength of other types of wool, and should be avoided when making socks, pants, rugs, or anything else that will take a lot of wear.

I will try to talk about other specific breeds in later posts, but today we are talking about wool in general.

Unlike cotton or linen, wool has a natural elasticity. First, because the individual fibers will stretch, and second, because most wool is a bit kinky or curly, and that will translate into the yarn. This stretchiness makes it easy to knit or crochet with, and is easy on the wrists.

Two locks of fine wool

Wool also has a natural ability to "grip" other wool, due to its texture at the microscopic level. This ability is most obvious when you felt or full it: the fibers interlock so that they can't be easily separated. But it also comes into play when spinning, as it doesn't take much to make the wool adhere to the leader or to make a join. This also means that, unlike some other fibers (cotton, alpaca) wool fabric will not "grow" over time under its own weight. Instead, changes in temperature and humidity will gradually, lightly felt the wool so that it keeps its shape indefinitely.

I don't really do felting, but here is a lopi hat, lightly fulled in a dryer so that it loses stitch definition.

To summarize: warmth, elasticity, and ability to grip and felt are some of the reasons why wool is the go-to material for knitters and crocheters (I'm ignoring synthetics, for now). It also takes dye very well, and most modern sheep are white, making it particularly easy to get yarn in whatever shade you want. Wool is also pretty inexpensive (at least in the U.S.), rivaled only by acrylic yarns.

All that said, there are some well-known disadvantages to wool as well.  First, as I alluded to above, there is a trade-off between softness and strength. In order for wool to be strong and take a lot of wear, it needs to have thicker fibers, and those tend to be less soft and more prickly. Second, it is hard to wash. That amazing ability to felt means that hot water and agitation will cause your garments to... shrink and felt. You can buy "super-wash" wool that does not have this problem (due to chemical treatments of various kinds) but it will not have that gripping advantage, and won't block very well.

Finally, wool's warmth can be a disadvantage in the summer or in warmer climates. It does wick moisture well though, so you can sweat a lot in wool without it even feeling wet if you wanted to go hiking in wool socks. That wicking can also be a disadvantage though - wet wool can hold a lot of water, making it very heavy to wear in the rain, and it will take forever to dry.