Vegan Practically

For lots of us, figuring out our food options when we start trying to make vegan choices is just the beginning. It slowly radiates out from there when it becomes clear just how much our commitment can have an impact on other areas of our lives.

I am an enthusiastic knitter, and used to love knitting intricate projects using luxurious yarns like kidsilk haze (a silk and mohair blend), soft wool and alpaca, and even straight-up silks. But when I became vegan some years ago, I stopped purchasing animal products, and wool and such are animal products. What a wonderful thing it was to discover that there are loads of alternatives, from affordable acrylics to fancier plant-based options like cotton, hemp, linen, and bamboo yarns. They come in a variety of weights and so far, there hasn’t been a project where I couldn’t find a decent plant-based or synthetic yarn instead of animal fibers.

Lots of people ask me why wool should be an issue at all. Leather is easier to understand as a direct byproduct of meat-production. But wool often calls up more pastoral scenes of sheep grazing on lush green slopes. And shearing (in the popular imagination) doesn’t kill or even harm them. In fact, wool production often (though not always) involves cruel practices and abuse. Moreover, as ruminants, sheep are second only to cows in the production of the powerful greenhouse gas, methane. It’s a hot issue, and even climate change Greta Thunberg has been called out. She is shown wearing wool in a photoshoot for Vogue Scandanavia. PETA came to her defence, however, offering that they had confirmed she was unaware and intimating further that she had been duped by a cruel industry. If you’re interested in learning more about what’s of concern in the wool industry in general, PETA has a sketch of the issues in infographic form on their website.

Regardless, anyone seeking to make vegan choices has already decided that they want to avoid animal products altogether, citing cruelty, exploitation, and climate change as their top concerns. Having made that decision, the next step is to direct our attention to finding those alternatives, hence my interest in talking about the many vegan options for knitters and their ilk.

My favourite plant-based yarns are bamboo and cotton, or blends thereof (like this one). They come in a variety of weights, from laceweight to bulky. I recently made cute little shoes for my adorable new grandson, Theo, using Sandnes Garn Line, a Norwegian-produced cotton-viscose-linen blend. [The shoes-in-progress are pictured above and turned out to be super-cute]

I’m not above using synthetic yarns, which are often more affordable and sometimes even have more of that wool-like quality that we might seek for winter gear. Right before the pandemic, I taught myself to crochet and went on an absolute tear crocheting winter hats made from various different colour-ways of Lion Brand Landscapes (which they describe as a “premium acrylic). It produced a good enough quality result that I had no qualms about giving hats made from it as gifts that winter. Another great choice for soft cozy winter gear is Bernat Velvet. It’s chunky and works up quickly.

The great thing about these synthetic yarns is that they are affordable (especially if you wait for a good sale) and easily available. Before I started sourcing vegan options as a new vegan, I had reached a point in my knitting where the yarns sold in most specialty stores I shopped at — the vast majority of their stock being animal fibers — were too expensive to justify and often not all that easy to find anyway. There can even be a kind of snobbery associated with the designer or small-batch or handspun yarns. So to be quite frank, it’s been nice to land back in a world where I can get what I need from Michael’s again.

I don’t give as much time to knitting as I once did, and I do have a stash (mostly from that hat-crocheting time) that I’m still working my way through, but I’m always keen on new recommendations to write down for another day. Please offer any suggestions for plant-based or synthetic fibers that have worked well for you.

Happy knitting, crocheting, or wherever your fibres take you.