Vegan knitting

Work in progress....

As I mentioned in my previous post, one of my close friends taught me how to knit a few days ago, and since then, I have been quite obsessed with it. Knitting is something that I have always dreamed of learning, but unfortunately no women (or men) in my family had been taught. My mom can barely sew a button! I have always enjoyed making use of my mitts and I find it to be quite the perfect activity. The basics are quite easy to learn, and you can see the results immediately. It requires patience but not really attention and you can knit while watching TV, on the bus, etc...

But there's an ugly side to knitting, and it's not my first attempt at it :) The treatment of sheep by the wool industry is quite terrible, but I won't dwell on the subject. You can easily find more details on the topic by goggling it. Since I have decided to switch to plant-based fibres, I have to deal with questions such as the environmental impact of cotton production. Indeed, cotton crops are some of the most intensively sprayed plants in the world. So if you want to knit with cotton but not increase pesticide use, you could use organic cotton & recycled or second-hand yarn (on ebay or Etsy). Luckily for us, are a whole variety of yarns out there to choose from that can satisfy both our vegan and the environmental demands. Vegan yarns can be made from cotton, linen, soy, bamboo, hemp, nettle, jute and even corn (for natural yarn) and rayon, acrylic, microfibre, nylon, and elastic (for synthetic ones).

For an exhaustive list of vegan yarn and availability on the market, check out this page of the Fake Sheep.

There are plenty of online shops that offer vegan yarn, here I only give you my favourite:
Elann (super cheap!)
Coolwoolz
Knit one crochet too
Laine et Tricot ♥ (which propose an impressive selection of yarns, in French)
Phildar (in French)
Pickles ♥
PurlSoho ♥ (my favourite, they have so many different yarns, and so nice too!)
Rowan (impressive quality yarn, check out the Cotton Glaze!)
Yarnia ♥(you can realise your very own blend!)

Fellow vegan knitters:
Fake sheep
TreeWool
Vegancraftastic
Vegan Knitter

Free patterns:
Pickles
Ravelry