Everything You Need to Know about Knitting with Linen-Cotton
Linen-Cotton is a lovely eco-friendly yarn and has some incredible properties that make it perfect for lightweight garments. It also makes a great yarn option for vegans as it is a lot more sustainable than an acrylic yarn due to its biodegradability. And for our non-vegan knitters, whilst pure wool is also a fantastically sustainable material, it isn’t always our first choice for summer garments.
In this guide we’ll talk about what our Linen-Cotton blend yarn is made from, what to make with it and our top tips for working with it.
What is it made from?
Linen is a fibre created from the flax plant, making a strong yet lightweight yarn. It makes for a fantastic sustainable vegan yarn due to it’s biodegradability and natural blend. It can sometimes be a little stiffer to work with at first in comparison to a natural wool, but we’ll get into our top tips on how to work with linen and how to soften your linen garments below. In our linen yarn, we’ve added a little cotton creating a blend of 60% Linen and 40% Cotton, to create a 100% natural yarn that is softer than a pure linen.
What to make with our Linen Cotton yarn
Our Linen-Cotton has some amazing properties that make it ideal for knitting and crocheting summer garments. It’s moisture wicking, antibacterial and naturally thermo-regulating, whilst also being lightweight and airy. Our Linen-Cotton isn’t just reserved for hand knitting, it can also be machine knitted and works brilliantly when used to create woven fabrics such as tea towels and table runners. If using our Linen-Cotton yarn for weaving, it can be used for both the warp and weft due to its strength.
If you’re looking for some summer garment patterns to use with our Linen-Cotton yarn, our Lottie top is a beautiful light and airy top that is perfect for wearing when our British sun finally appears.
Marina (@marinaskua) has used our linen to make an adorable summer top (pattern available on her website)
Jessica (@damgostudio) has woven up some beautiful textures using a lovely combination of colours
How do I take care of it?
The amazing thing about Linen-Cotton is that the more you wash it, the softer it gets, turning what is initially a slightly stiffer fibre into a soft, cooling garment.
When it comes to washing your finished garments, we would always recommend hand washing. Take a look at our basic guide to hand washing your knitted pieces below.
- Add some wool detergent to a bowl/sink of warm water
- When the garment is clean, do not ring, just squeeze gently and roll it in a towel to remove excess water
- Dry flat
Our Tips for Knitting with Linen-Cotton
- Unlike wool, our Linen-Cotton yarn tends to be more on the inelastic side, making it a little harder to work with. Try to knit a little more loosely that you usually would and keep an eye on your yarn to make sure it isn’t slipping out of place.
- Rather than winding up your cone into balls, pull the yarn directly from the cone as you knit to avoid any tangles being created.
- As Linen-Cotton tends to slip around a little bit more than wool, we recommend using wooden needles instead of metal ones in order to create a little bit more friction.
- When deciding on your pattern, avoid going for anything that would require much stretch. It’s best to go with projects like shawls, tops, cardigans, tea towels, table runners, etc.
- Do your tension swatch!
If you make something with our yarn, Linen-Cotton or anything from our other ranges, remember to tag us in your Instagram photos or send us an email as we love to see what you’ve been making.
