This might be the hardest task for knitting without plastic. Iāve gone to some local stores and snooped around online looking for sock yarn and every time I do I get the same canned response.
āYou know those will wear out, right?ā
Itās easy to find 100% wool yarn, even non-superwash (yes superwash yarn contains plastic), but youāll be darning them often if you wear them very much.
So is it fruitless? Well no, there are non-plastic alternatives to nylon that can give a yarn strength, such as mohair and silk. There are construction techniques too that a good sock yarn should have regardless. High ply-count and longer fiber strands, for example. BFL wool is notorious for its longer staple length, so does corriedale and targhee. And if the ply is 4 or more it will make for a better sock yarn foundation.
The most trouble Iāve run into now has been finding yarns that can fit this bill.
Iāve spent the past week trawling through Ravelryās advance search for yarn, and the process has been slow and insightful. The more particular I search, āsilk OR mohair, AND wool, AND NO manufactured fibers, 4-ply OR 5-ply+, AND NO superwash, AND not discontinuedā, the less results I get. But still, there are results.
One would expect, with a search this tailored, youād have at least a list of options, but Iāve still hit roadblocks. These come in two main forms: insufficient tagging or unavailable for purchase.
I cannot count how many times Iāve found a yarn that got me excited, only to click on the about page and read ā80% SW Woolā. āSWā meaning superwash. Or even worse, no mention of superwash on the about page, and then finding out the yarn is in fact superwash when I went to a retail listing. It makes me ask, if youāre using superwash wool, why not tag that as part of the care instructions so it can be searched through Ravelry? Why use superwash wool at all if youāre just going to recommend people handwash only?
The other pitfall is that these small dyers (as the majority of them are) donāt have the stock or have all together discontinued dying, yet havenāt updated their yarnās about page to show itās no longer available. Or, equally sad, when thereās simply no buying option available at all. Ravelry doesnāt always find every online store, so I try to look up the producer by name, and this sometimes gets me to an Etsy shop--But still, some yarns just seem to exist on their about page but nowhere else.
Still, Iāve managed to make a short list of yarns that pass the inspection and have some method for purchase. And honestly, all you need is one good product line for a lifetime of knitting if it fits all the bills. But I look at the number of yarns I could otherwise choose but are now discontinued (1/4th of them!) and wonder how long my current list will last.
So remember to support small dyers and yarn makers, and do your due diligence to make sure youāre getting the right product.
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