I heart artificial fiber

Yes, you heard me.

I know, it's all about the cashmerino and the angora and the silk and the wool from sheep who can trace their ancestry to the herd owned by King Charles (you pick which one). But I love me some good plastic :o).

I don't love them all equally. There is a lot of crap out there, and I think it depends a little on the natural fiber they are trying to "mimic". I don't like most of the acrylic stuff that poses as a wool substitute. Not a chance. The ones I know are scratchy and awkward - maybe I don't know the right ones.

My absolute favourite of the plastiques is Fabiani Micro-Plus. I think it's the home brand of one of the big department store chains here. It's soft like you wouldn't believe, has incredible stitch definition, washes well, doesn't lose shape and comes in all kinds of terriffic solid colours. And it wears well, too, all year round. (Maybe I should mention that our climate isn't really extreme. I don't know how it would wear in, say, Texas.)
Oh, yeah, it's also dirt cheap.

Next on the list of favourites is cotton/acrylic mix. I like it about 50-50. It wears and breathes like cotton, but it doesn't morph from a sweater to a tent after the second wash. I'm all about the progress, people. Embrace modern times, buy plastic!

Part of my love for artificials comes from the fact that I'm a scatterbrained klutz. I will spill coffee on my clothes, eventually I will throw handwash only stuff in the laundry basket and my sweaters will get pulls. Knowing this about myself, I can't imagine knitting something with yarn that's € 20 per skein. Not for myself, that is. I would probably buy the yarn and never work with it, because it's too precious. And if I ever worked up the nerve to actually knit with the good stuff, I wouldn't ever wear it. Because, you know, it's too precious. What's the point?

That doesn't mean that I don't lust after all that hand-dyed-cashmere-silk goodness. I'm as big a yarn addict as the next knitter. Sigh, but it's just no good.

In other news: gratuitious, blurry sock update:

Getting there. Slowly.