Yarn "ingredients" ... what is it really?

[CallMeKelly]

I'm looking at yarns to buy and I'm a wee bit lost... is viscouse "natural" or synthetic? There were other materials I had questions about but darn it, I forgot their names. Oh, one was lana... I googled but only found a wool yarn company, so I'm not sure if it is wool or not.

Besides wool, cotton, bamboo and silk what natural materials are used to make yarn?

[Kyamo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscose
Looks like viscose is made of wood or cotton, but goes through quite a bit of chemistry.

I don't know what lana is.

Other natural materials I can think of: soy, alpaca, cashmere(goats)

[feminist~mama]

"Lana" is spanish for "wool"

HTH!

[flapjack]

Other natural yarnstuffs:
hemp
soy silk
ramie
tencel is plant-based, but processed.
flax/ linen

and animalbased can be anything from alpaca to yak fibre, taking in quiviut and cashmere along the way HTH.

[feminist~mama]

I think modal is plant based too but really processed.

[mamadaisy]

If I am not mistaken viscose and rayon are nearly the same. One may be processed slightly differently than the other, but from what I remember they are about the same. I work in the clothing industry and I am supposed to know this. Rayon, viscose and modal are all plant-derived but require quite a bit of processing to turn them from plants into fiber.

[CallMeKelly]

Who knew yarn would be this complicated? Are the processing techniques anything to worry about for things like rayon/viscose or tencel?

[kimberlychapman]

FYI, the book No Sheep For You has a really good opening chapter on the histories, contents, and manufacturing of non-wool yarns, from the naturals (silk, cotton, etc.) to the man-made (nylon, acrylic, etc.).

It goes into detail about the general properties of each one as well, such as stretch, drape, softness, washability, etc.

So it's a good resource even for those of you who are lucky enough to not be allergic to wool. You could probably find it in your local library if you just wanted to read that chapter out of curiosity.

[alaska]

There's also a book called The Knitter's Book of Yarn - all you ever wanted to know about yarn and then some.