Knitting with Recycled Silk Sari Yarn

The Recycled Silk Sari Yarn is very tactile. It is an unusual, varied and colourful coarse yarn made from recycled sari fabric and can be knitted, crocheted or woven. The yarn will create a robust fabric suitable for bags, hats and rugs.

The frayed strips of brightly coloured, and often metallic, remnants have been tightly spun into an exciting new medium.

Sharon, who works here at FIBRECRAFTS, was the first to experiment with it and here's what she discovered.

The piece of knitting, pictured below with hanks of the yarn, was knitted on large needles. Sharon found the yarn quite difficult to knit with because of its texture and found that it occasionally snapped apart where the different pieces of sari joined. These were easy to fix with a small knot that did not show in the finished piece.

As the knitting began to grow, these inconveniences proved to be worth enduring.

This close-up (below) shows the frayed edges of the Recycled Silk Sari Yarn which are surprisingly soft to the touch. The knitting has been handled and pulled around by a number of us here and appears to provide a robust fabric which would be ideal for use in bag making or as a cushion cover. Due to the openness of the stitches, a silk fabric lining (dyed with acid dyes to compliment the colour variations) would further strengthen the finished article.

This sample shows knitting created on smaller needles. It has made an exquisite, dense fluffy fabric which would again be ideal for bag making or cushion covers. Sharon found it very hard to knit but we all the think the result worthwhile. A similar effect could be achieved on a tapestry or weaving loom to make a colourful rug.