Major – washability, wearability, and affordability

I’m not a yarn snob. I believe that every yarn has its place within the realms of knitters and knitted garments. Yes, even acrylic yarns.

Our yarn this week is Major, a 100% acrylic yarn that has all the benefits of acrylic – wash-ability, wear-ability, and affordability.

I firmly believe that acrylic yarn has its place, and bulky acrylic yarns offer instant gratification, as you’ll see throughout my posts this week. Knitters cringe when they hear the story of the pure wool baby jacket that got tossed in the washer by accident and came out of the ordeal not much bigger than a fashion doll’s coat. Acrylic yarn will not do that to you! 

Acrylic yarn holds its shape, so it isn’t ideal for lace work that needs to be blocked, but it’s perfect for hats and mitts and scarves that will get lots of wear and tugging.

You can rest assured that a moth larva will never try to eat into your hand knitted acrylic sweaters, either!

Acrylic yarns are great for teaching children to knit. I like to put a slightly thinner yarn into the little ones’ hands (double knitting or knitting worsted), so that the needles are a more manageable size for them, but I choose a bulky yarn for my hands to show the techniques of wrapping yarn and drawing through loops. 

I have a friend who is a retired kindergarten teacher. She and I often speak about the importance of having, each one teach one. On her behalf, I encourage you to teach a young person in your life to knit, and if you don’t have a young person, perhaps you’d consider volunteering at an elementary school – the schools that have knitting as an extracurricular program might just need your help.

I digress, but it IS September – a time of learning – and Major is a good, bulky yarn for showing knitting concepts, so the message is timely. 

So what could you make with Major? 

Well, the soft yellow and green in our Honeydew colorway would make a sumptuous baby blanket, that’s for sure! 

Crimson would make a stunning office cardigan and it would snap a black winter coat to a full-on attention-getter! 

The deep greens in Verdant would make a cozy man’s scarf – I have an idea for that.

I have similar plans for the neutral colorway of Stonewall. I want to make a hat and scarf to match my winter coat (like I need another scarf…) 

The Firecracker colorway would make a dramatic shawl or afghan, especially if a solid black yarn was used to frame it up with a border.

There are only 30 more colors of Major – I invite you to have a look and think of what you’d choose to knit.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll be doing one of my favorite things: doodling with yarn. In the process, we’ll talk about stripe management.