Yarns made from drinks!

Transcript

Would you wear a drink? Because here we have knitting yarns made from coffee, tea, and even cow’s milk!

This coffee yarn is made from spent coffee grounds. Once the drink is extracted, the grounds are a waste product that can be upcycled into a yarn that resembles cotton, reducing organic waste and supporting sustainable practices.

It has a subtle sheen, and soft handle, but it’s surprisingly hardy, making durable pieces once knitted.

This is an undyed ecru coloured yarn; try dyeing it yourself with dyes suitable for plant-based fibres like cotton and viscose.

This green tea yarn is made from powdered green tea leaves. Naturally antibacterial, soft to the touch and friendly to the skin, super shiny with a slight tea colouring. Which again you can dye with dyes designed for plant-based fibres.

And we also have yarn that’s made out of milk. Milk yarn was invented in Italy in the 1930s. Casein from milk is dried, ground, coagulated and extruded, in a similar process to the manufacture of viscose, but because it's made from protein, rather than cellulose, it behaves more like wool when dyed.

Milk yarn is light and silky, with a slight sheen, and resembles a plant-based viscose yarn. It has the same pH as human skin and various antibacterial properties are claimed for it.

This is not a particularly hard-wearing yarn so would lend itself to more decorative pieces.

These are all part of our wide range of unique and plant based yarns on cones for machine knitting, which you can check out at knitworkslondon.com