This week we’re looking at Fibra Natura’s Unity and Unity Beyond. Today I’ll explore the fiber characteristics of this yarn and show you a video of how the knit fabric behaves because of the qualities of each component fiber. Yesterday, I talked about the architecture of this yarn, but today, it’s about the fiber content!
The wool content of Unity and Unity Beyond helps with blocking. The finished piece can be stretched out to highlight lace or to modify row gauge and the wool content is sufficient to give the yarn “memory.”
Unity (and Unity Beyond) by Fibra Natura has four different fibers, one animal based, and 3 plant based. Each fiber brings its own characteristic to the yarn. The fiber content is 36% wool, 28% cotton, 18% linen and 18% bamboo.
Reverse stockinette stitch shows of the reflective gleam of the bamboo content easily.
Bamboo fiber is actually a biodegradable rayon thread made from a pulp mash that is made with the pith from the inside of bamboo stalks. It’s shiny and extremely strong, however, it has little to no elasticity. In Unity, the bamboo provides sheen and also some of the strength in the binding plies.
Linen comes from the flax plant. The strands of this long, grass-like plant are processed mechanically to remove the outer bark from the long inner strands of cellulose. The stalks go through a soaking, fermentation and drying process called retting which makes it easier to remove the outer bark. When linen is added to yarn it brings in three positives. It adds absorbency, which makes it cool to wear in hot, humid weather. It’s very strong and helps a garment keep its shape, and it provides an amazing amount of drape and lightness to knit fabrics. I’ll show you how the yarn drapes in this video.
Cotton fiber adds coolness and softness to yarn. In Unity and Unity Beyond, cotton is the second highest fiber content. It lives up to its duties of keeping the yarn very comfortable to the touch and it helps keep the finished knits cool.
There is proportionally more wool in Unity than any of the other fibers individually, but overall, wool makes up just over ⅓ of the yarn’s fiber content. What I found about the wool in this yarn is that it has no scratchiness at all, and it adds loft and drape. Wool is the only component of Unity and Unity Beyond that has elasticity. That’s important to a bouclé yarn so that you don’t get an extremely loose stitch or an extremely tight one that doesn’t relax during the blocking process. It also is key to helping the finished knit hold its shape after blocking.
Many of the Unity Beyond colorways have solid colors in Unity that complement them well. Here’s Adobe and Rose Villa (solids) to accompany Biscotti.
Now that we’ve looked at both the architecture (yesterday) and fiber content of Unity and Unity Beyond, we’ll review some designs that have been knit with these yarns tomorrow.
This is part 2 of 5 in this series.
Go back to part 1: Unraveling Unity and Unity Beyond: what makes this yarn unique?
Go to part 3: Unimaginable drape and comfort in knit designs made with Unity yarn
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