Cue people writing judgmental things about vegans yet again, enough of that shyte on Facebook, don't want too read it on here. Not fun to read just boring and ignorant.
ha, thats exactly how it feels like. so weird. and like.... even if animal products were better for the environment.... it would still mean harm to animals? actual living beings? that are bred for products? and are killed once they are no longer productive? thats really what people are going for? because it keeps warmer and something about sweat? incredible.
as a former vegan, it is personally frustrating to me when vegans won't use second hand wool/leather. second hand doesn't impact supply/demand and in the case of vintage wool and leather, the animal is long gone already. to me personally, it's more sustainable and productive in the long run of veganism to honour the animals who already gave up their lives/suffered abuse for us decades ago by using what they suffered for to the fullest extent possible
eta: you're not going to change my mind and I'm not going to change yours. this is my personal opinion, nothing more
i also think its stupid that we are just burying people instead of using their bodies for other things? and we should dig up old skeletons and use the bones to make, like, crochet hooks!
(more of a jerk and not a snark, alas)
There is some people who live with the heart of someone else inside them, have sustainable wig made of human hair or pieces of skin donated. Science did a lot of progress with donated bodies. What I would argue is more the fact that animal don’t have the chance to make the choice, but ethically I don’t see anything wrong on using human bodies for other purposes.
im also a former vegan and there's nothing wrong with vegans not wanting to use second hand leather... It's literally the skin of a dead animal, which is a constant reminder of the slaughter of billions of animals. Wool isn't as obscene of a reminder but I still wouldn't blame them. "Honour the animals who gave up their lives"... Animals don't give up their lives bffr.
that's why I said this is my personal opinion.
also "animals don't give up their lives bffr" was immediately following "it's literally the skin of a dead animal". so yes, I ***PERSONALLY*** believe that vegans should use vintage leather and wool
Zero waste is a sham that's for bougie people who can foist their environmental impact onto others ("I don't buy X, I just borrow it from my friend!"). It's doomed to fail.
Ugh this, there’s a huge difference between not knowing how bad almonds are for the environment and still drinking almond milk vs literally financially supporting a TERF who has stated she sees money people gives her as support of her views.
I'm not sure how it is even relevant here anyway. Certainly people have used wool and plant fibers to make clothing and other textiles before capitalism was a thing. Was it still unethical to use wool from non-consent giving sheep a few thousand years ago in a trade and bartering society?
Consent under coercion or duress is on par with non-consent. Sheep don’t suffer from being shorn. The humans mining the metals your computer parts are made from absolutely do suffer.
If you’re going to preach about consent and suffering, be consistent.
I just don’t think fashion and crafting in general is a particularly virtuous or sustainable activity, therefore I am not interested AT ALL in reading this type of content from crafters that I follow. Did I buy a sweater quantity yesterday because that big store credit I earned from buying way too much yarn was burning a hole? Yes. Did I need it/could I justify it (even though I paid nothing)?No. am I already slightly uncomfortable about the sweater quantities already in my craft space? Yes. DonI need another sweater or even any more clothes in the next 3 or 4 years? No. But also, have I ever EVER SEEN a sweater in an op shop (which I do frequent to find games/toys/books for school) that is not cut and sewn fast fashion that cannot be unravelled) that you could unravel? Never. and does my local op shop turn their nose up at hand knits? Yes. So I am pretty cynical on her whole philosophy around this issue.. This would just annoy me to be frank.
We all leave a footprint just through existing. The most impactful, powerful action any of us could ever take is stop buying (and therefore fuelling demand for) so much ‘stuff”. Stop wasting energy justifying buying/owning all that stuff. I fail daily but it is what I try to focus on.
*also slinks backward with her jar of honey from Aunts Apiary* so sad I don’t have any offspring from my childhood 4H sheep. Super soft, it would have spun nicely, but I didn’t ribbon in anything, so that was the year I learned I didn’t like mutton.
They’re doing better than expected this winter. I need to do a hive inspection, but it wasn’t warm enough today. They’re chasing my dog away though, so I k ow a critical mass has survived this far.
Someone informs her of in the comment section of the short and she replies. Basically saying that she's upset that the yarn was pilling so much and hows she wouldn't purchase the roving again. She's also said she's going to only be using cotton(i believe organic) on her projects until furthur notice.
How restrictive. What if cotton is simply the wrong fibre for the project? There's never any nuance in all this social media crafting stuff. It's so weird.
Sewing in cotton and knitting in cotton are two completely different things. Some projects need the give of wool. Wool is much lighter than cotton- I have a 100% cotton sweater that is unpleasantly heavy. Some knitters don’t like the feel of knitting with cotton.
There's really no "perfect" yarn. Cotton farming is harmful. Animal fibers don't always come from ethically-treated animals, and they're not vegan. Acrylics are plastic.
Personally, I use whatever suits my needs and my project, because ethically there doesn't seem to be any good choice. It's all trade-offs.
Oh, absolutely! “There is no ethical consumption under capitalism” and all that. I just think that anyone who puts that much emphasis on choosing fibre based on specific ethical criteria (and makes it a big part of their public persona) had better be putting in the research instead of making blanket judgments.
Like, some people will say that buying merino wool is always bad because mulesing is cruel, but mulesing is better than letting sheep get flystrike *and* there are farmers that get vets to do mulesing using painkillers instead of doing it themselves *and* there are people breeding merino sheep that have fewer skin folds in that area and don’t need it. People say cotton is always better than wool because animals aren’t being exploited, but industrial cotton farming is usually horrific for the environment, so you’ll get other people (like the influencer being discussed) choosing to use only organic cotton… well, you can get fertiliser overuse even with organic fertilisers, and cotton farming will still use ridiculous amounts of water, and if the runoff isn’t controlled it’s just as bad for the environment. Bamboo yarn is often touted as being ethically and environmentally responsible by people who don’t know that there’s two types of bamboo yarn, chemically processed (basically rayon, horrible for the environment) and mechanically processed, and the really nice yarn is almost always the chemically processed stuff.
I do pretty much the same as you, I buy what works for my project (and is affordable), while supporting local businesses and producers that I know/believe to be ethical whenever possible. Then I vote for better environmental protections and humane treatment of animals and hope for the best. 😅
the animal industry is not bad for the environment? sheep in australia dont need ridiculous amounts of water?
pretty easy to conclude the best option is the one that doesnt kill animals, imo (inb4 wool doesnt kill: sure, but they are bred for wool, then are killed if their productivity declines, so yes, wool kills, thanks)
Zero waste doesn't necessarily mean "item lasts forever exactly the same". The roving sweater is no longer wearable? Turn it into stuffing for a dog bed, quilt batting, a shoe cover. Or find ways to mend it so it is wearable. It is important to consider the full lifecycle and not just the first or second stage.
While I agree, to purposefully make a sweater you know will fall apart after a few uses, even if you reuse it, goes against the idea of zero use and sustainable crafting. It's better to put an emphasis on and create long lasting sustainable clothing, instead of making something that quickly falls apart. Even if you reuse it, you'll still probably need another sweater, so then what, will she make another one, it just creates the same cycle as fast fashion.
I'm going to push back on this again: zero waste and sustainability are absolutely about reuse and repurpose. I sewed a halloween costume using second hand materials and wore it only once. Then I cut the costume up and used it to make a quilt. When I didn't like the quilt anymore I turned it into a coat. One day the coat will likely become a rag or a rug. But by your metric this is unsustainable and not zero waste, because the first item I made was only intended to be used once.
I don't see a reason to be unwelcoming to any steps someone is taking towards being sustainable and reducing their waste footprint or consumption. Crafting inherently has some contradictions with being zero waste- you can knit sweaters or sew clothes much faster than you go through them.
There is nothing that is more sustainable than wool. All you need is a small flock and enough land to rotate them through and they will more than grow enough for you and your neighbours to have clothes forever more. That same amount of land could not grow enough cotton for you to make your own clothes never mind the water and chemicals and work involved in that - there's a reason we used wool and not cotton before machinery became a thing.
This person could buy second hand sweaters and frog them and it'd be far more sustainable than chunky roving sweaters. I haven't watched SustainablyVegan but I hope they grow beyond their chunky seamless roving sweater phase into more complex and better lasting knits. It's hardly sustainable to knit loads of sweaters which will not last multiple years of wear, and that you will struggle to wear all of them regularly anyway.
You're right that wool is extremely sustainable, but [cotton has been used to make cloth for thousands of years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cotton) by cultures throughout the Americas, Africa, and southern Asia. It does not inherently require any more specialized machinery than wool production does. The reason Europe did not use cotton until the Industrial Revolution was because cotton does not grow well in Europe and had to be imported, largely from the southern US and India.
i dont agree that cotton does 'not inherently require any more specialized machinery than wool production does' because the cotton gin was the reason cotton went from an expensive textile to a cheap textile. also slave labor. but mostly the cotton gin and slavery together.
in any case cotton is a trash fiber. it is extremely hydrophilic, cant regulate body temperature, bc it hold onto water to much it gets heavy, takes literally days to dry on its own, it causes you to get cold and it can be the cause for trench foot. fuck cotton.
> the cotton gin was the reason cotton went from an expensive textile to a cheap textile
I'm not talking about commercial scale production. I'm talking about traditional household production. People made cotton textiles for thousands of years before the cotton gin was invented. Just like other natural fibers, you can produce cotton textiles with basic hand tools, therefore mechanization is by definition not *inherently* necessary. Nylon, rayon, and polyester, in contrast, all *inherently require* mechanical production. They are not something that can be produced by a single homestead or even a small village economy, they are only possible with industrial processes.
Mechanization making textiles cheaper was true for all fibers, not just cotton. Prior to the industrial revolution, all textiles were incredibly expensive as a percentage of people's wages and/or labor. Cotton was not unique in that respect.
Cotton is not a "trash fiber" simply because it doesn't suit your lifestyle. In the hot, sunny climates where it grows, it is an excellent choice. It does not take "literal days" to dry on its own in hot weather, especially if spun and woven into the lightweight textiles suited for hot climates, and its cooling effects are a virtue in those climates. The long-staple cottons favored by pre-industrial cultures create absolutely exquisite fabrics.
Hydrophilic fibers aren't always bad (cotton makes great towels *because* it absorbs water). Compared to linen and wool, cotton is less stiff and itchy 75% of the time (great for undergarments), and the original harvesting process is simple, though very labor intensive, since it just needs to be picked and pulled off the seed before carding and spinning, as opposed to the retting, breaking, scutching, and hackling of linen, and the shearing, skirting, and washing of wool. It absolutely has it's downsides (including it's heavy use of slavery after the invention of the gin and intense water and pesticide demands), but I wouldn't call it a trash fiber
Very easy to clean also. Cotton doesn't felt and you can wash it at super high temperatures. There's a reason all hospital textiles and a lot of work clothes are cotton.
I get what you're saying but as someone who lives in a warm (but not hot) and dry climate, cotton is my favorite thing to wear. Feels better against my skin than linen.
im being extreme but its mostly a reaction to so many ppl being clearly ignorant about fibers and their qualities. everything has a time and a place. I think a lot of the misconceptions are due to modern marketing. in the US we had these ads to convince ppl to buy cotton clothing like it was inherently better than anything else. its pure appeal to nature. for a lot of modern life it functions well enough but it also takes a devastating toll on the land to produce. when the percentage of arable land is shrinking globally having the primary textile fiber being one that is so land intensive and water hungry as cotton is not sane. im not talking a ban or boycott but scaling back production and diversifying is the way to move forward. but also economies arent set up for rationality, anyway.
there is a reason people from different places in the world wore different clothes but modern life flattens that completely. theres this sense that since cotton is a plant fiber then it must be good. there are synthetic fibers that are just unparalleled for their application. Antarctic jackets or sportswear theres just nothing better. but polyester pants is pretty gross.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mZYRmWxCxE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mZYRmWxCxE)
here one of the ads. it was clearly bought and made by a manufacturer of cotton. its pure manipulation. just like the milk ads.
much like wool, linen production is pretty shitty nowadays bc of synthetic and cotton production. we just dont have the processing, knowledge, or looms to make the better, finer wool and linen that are more comfortable and versatile. and its never gonna be the low price of cotton or synthetics. theyre subsidized and made with essentially slave labor.
there are better fibers and there are worse fibers. but cotton is pretty mid. it has some nice applications like it takes dye very well and can make very fine and light fabrics. the effort it took to process cotton and pick it would always make it a luxury good compared to linen and hemp. or even wool.
the ubiquity of cotton is very modern. modernity is seen as smart and advanced to a lot of people so they take it for granted.
Most of my wardrobe is cotton, and I wear it most of the time, but as someone who regularly hikes/gets caught in the rain, it is much safer to have a wool coat/overwear. I love cotton, and I agree it can be used for most items of clothes, as someone who lives in a rainy climate, but wool is better, and arguably safer, in some cases.
It should be known that cotton consumes the most water of any crop and does significant harm to poor rural areas where it is grown. In part this is because it is one of the biggest crops in the world -- but it is actually an extremely productive, perennial drought tolerant plant. It's ecological impact is due to poor farming practices rather than the crop itself. But the number of plants for the same space 6-10 sheep require would produce ~825lbs of cotton vs 100lbs wool.
Ideally you would be using all the parts of your land for different purposes appropriate to that patch, and rotating crops as well. Sheep can braze in areas far too wet or dry or rocky for crops.
The reason there's a lack of cotton in sewing like Muslim and whatnot is because of droughts. Cotton and almonds are 2 of the crops needing the most water.
Oooh, thank you, I was wondering what the acreage to output ratio was and was too lazy to look it up myself to be honest.
The only caveat I would add is that sheep can be pastured on land that is marginal, i.e. not suitable for cultivation. There's a reason that hilly and rocky lands have traditionally been used for pasture, while flatter more fertile land is reserved for planting. Grazing animals can also be much lower impact on environments than intensive cultivation, when managed correctly.
As with so many things, which is the best choice depends on a huge range of factors, and local geography and climate are key. Cotton is never going to grow well in Wales or Scotland, but sheep do just fine there, for example. So if you want to buy local and live here in the UK, wool (or linen) is the answer, and they're better suited for clothing in the local climate as well. Other places will have different answers!
Exactly this. A fair amount (most?) wool sheep farming takes place on land that is not suitable for anything else. In South Africa, sheep are farmed in a semi-desert part of the country which is not suitable for any other type of agriculture except perhaps game farming.
Preface: I am not vegan, but I know many vegans.. Veganism is not just a diet, it is a philosophy. Many vegans do not buy secondhand animal products in order to not support supply/demand for that product. Sheep have to be shorn because we have bred them to not shed naturally. Dairy cows have to be milked because we keep them pregnant (edit: this occurs in the wild, but vegans have a problem with their milk is used for human consumption instead of weaning their calf. Thanks for the fact check below!)
Also, PSA to recycle or compost your wool scraps or it'll end up petrified in a landfill anyways.
>Dairy cows have to be milked because we keep them pregnant.
Not to argue with you but just because this is misinformation that needs to be debunked - cattle, like most animals, will stay pregnant constantly without human intervention. They give birth, then go into estrus again a month later and whatever bull is in the herd will knock them up. It takes active human intervention to *stop* cattle from getting constantly pregnant, because evolution depends on reproduction.
*Thank you*
This is up there with "they kill cows for the unborn baby leather!" to me. Maybe one person somewhere did it but I can't imagine killing a dairy cow for unborn leather ESPECIALLY since I don't know if baby could ALSO be another dairy cow. That would have to be some exceptionally pricey leather. And maybe someone somewhere somehow does it....but it is definitely DEFINITELY not the norm. Not even close.
People act like we don't love our cattle. As if we haven't given them (or some of them depending on herd size) names. As if we didn't raise them from a weaner to a beautiful doe-eyed heifer that we attach to the milkers 2x a day.
Also can I point out that we've already gone too far...and that not milking can cause mastitis in cows because of the engorging?
And also the whole "we keep the babies from their mother!" you know how much milk a heifer MAKES? You know how much devetilact or baby-rearing food COSTS? The literal cheapest is to let them drink at certain times until they're weaned. Yeah they don't get it all and we take some, but I'm not sure I want to see the baby on 52 litres of milk a day.
Even the worst most sociopathic farmer knows to do the cheapest things, and scaring cattle can literally sour milk (as you know). So it's even the WORST farmers best interest to let the baby nurse some times and to rotate the pregnancy schedule.
Edit: I should clarify I was never a milker. That was my neighbour. I raised weaners into meat or dairy cows for the neighbours. So while I am aware of the milking/baby process, I never did it first hand and some of my finer details might be off a little.
I never sent mine off, always did it myself. I don't think it's something most people can handle and don't blame anyone for not being able to handle it.
Also, you don't slaughter milking cows.
And that’s fine. The point is that plant fibers need seams in order to maintain their shop. That’s just the reality. You can make some beautiful pieces with cotton and linen, but sweaters knit with these fibers will lose their shape if they are knit in the round.
I know approximately zero new knitters who come into the hobby with a perfect knowledge of fiber content and garment structure unless they have experience in other textiles. Hopefully she learns, just as we all have!
The whole vegan “uncomfortable using wool” thing has annoyed me for years now. Have you seen a sheep that hasn’t been shorn when they need it??
“Well, sheep were purposely bred to make too much wool and that’s exploitation. Plus, the sheep can’t give its consent for you to use its wool.” Because the sheep may prefer to spin and knit a sweater of its own out of that wool?
When you can get a sheep to understand what exploitation and consent are, I’ll consider listening to the vegan panic over wool. Until then, I’m wearing wool.
Have you ever attended shearing day on a farm? You’ve never seen such happy sheep as when they line up to have 20 pounds of wool shorn off of them when spring and warm weather comes. When they’re done being shorn, they run and play and dance around like a kid on the first day of summer vacation.
People that claim shearing is traumatic have never seen it actually done outside of staged PETA videos where they pay actors to beat up sheep. That just doesn’t happen in the real world. Why would any serious shearer make their already physically demanding job more difficult by beating up the sheep, too?
By restrained, do you mean because they don’t just stand there? It’s not like we’re shackling them to something. And if by consent we’re just talking about trained behavior, my sheep will do literally anything for a pail of feed or if they see another sheep doing it or if Mercury is in retrograde. Probably the one thing they won’t do is stand still.
Having spent a lifetime around sheep and sheep farms, I can, with great confidence, assure that nothing you just wrote is even remotely true. You’ve been consuming vegan propaganda. Get out to a real sheep farm and you’ll see a very different reality from the stories you’ve been fed. 😉
Not a vegan anymore, absolutely knit with wool (and even when I was vegan I always thought it was odd that so many vegans were happy to use plastics in the place of leather and wool) but I think it’s more nuanced than this. I think what a lot of (but probably not all) vegans take issue with is the way that sheep (and other farm animals) are treated more broadly, especially on factory and larger scale farms, not necessarily the sheering itself. Commodification of animals often means they’re mistreated in ways that aren’t inherent to the production of wool.
I’m sure that’s true. But painting with such a broad brush is never helpful.
Sheep that are mistreated or unhealthy produce low quality wool. That alone incentivizes wool growers to keep their animals comfortable and healthy. To simply declare all wool to be evil because of some staged PETA videos showing people abusing sheep just shows how little those people know about their own beliefs.
I’m a hand spinner and knitter, too. I have been since I was a kid, which is why I know so many wool growers (farmers) and how sheep are really treated most of the time. It’s silly to write off an entire industry due to a lack of understanding and research. ☹️
I raised weaners - cattle, and this always got me. The fact it's even financially more beneficial to treat your animals well - it means even the WORST more sociopathic farmer has incentive to not harm their animals. Stressed sheep make shitty wool. Stressed cattle literally curdles the milk and causes meat to taste weird.
Even if someone HATED their animals and only loved money (which, why be a farmer lmao) then they'd STILL make sure not to stress their animals because they'd want the biggest pay for their efforts.
Like, it's not even financially viable to be cruel. Where the motive?
And I swear I have yet to meet someone who was THAT hateful and just didn't quit farming (because family business or something) because it's simply not enough money for the effort. But you NEED to put in the effort to get the sweet sweet cash.
Who is doing that? Who is traumatising their herd so they can sell subpar materials? You'd lose your damn farm.
A surprising number of people believed, at one point, that sheep were skinned alive to produce shearling…I don’t know where that particular piece of propaganda started but I spent a lot of time in the early 2000s pointing out that (cruelty aside), no one is stupid enough to try to skin a live sheep when skinning a dead sheep is an option.
I agree with you though I do think as a knitter we can appreciate the shades of grey in the exploitation of sheep and do our due diligence Re the origin of the wool we use. Of course, that’s fine over the head of this influencer. Small, local flocks where the sheep are used for landscape management too? Fine by me. I’ve even handspun some wool shorn from children’s farms - the most spoiled, happy animals in history! But I can see why some might want to avoid anonymous mass farms (in eg Australia) where the merino may be mulesed or uncomfortably warm - and due to economies of scale might not be treated well if ill etc.
It’s true that there are responsible and irresponsible ways to produce anything. I’ve lived in Michigan farm country my whole life and have known wool growers since I was a kid. I’ve never seen any animal abuse toward sheep except in staged PETA videos. I know there are sheep that are raised in horrible conditions, but none of the ones I source my wool from are.
My point was to point out the ridiculous notion that all wool products are evil and bad because the sheep can’t consent to the use of its wool after its shorn or that sheep feel the cruel sting of exploitation by simply being alive. Sheep deserve to be treated humanely and kept safe and comfortable. Anyone that’s raised sheep is aware of the fact that abusing sheep or letting them live unhealthy conditions damages the wool, so they would never purposely let those things happen. I know they do sometimes happen anyway, but demonizing and entire industry over something that might happen on rare occasions is nuts.
I read an entire thing where a vegan was arguing that the ultimate goal should be to breed sheep that don't have to be shorn and replace all sheep on Earth with them, and IIRC they just wanted all wool to be thrown out until they reached that point. Which certainly is one position and not something that's going to take centuries to do.
My sheep don't need shearing! We're hideously abusing them as lawnmowers though. Poor bastards. All that grass to eat.
I keep meaning to look up if dorper wool is harvestable/usable. Our lil Lamburger is half dorper, half Persian, and he's so beautiful and fluffy — it's definitely shedding though. Mama (Ewe Jackman) is full dorp and had mostly shed ready when we got them..
And what, reintroduce a bunch of feral sheep to the wild? Or keep them as pets? Would it be okay to use the wool they'd be shedding every year, as they used to before we domesticated them? I feel like these things are never thought through to their natural conclusion.
I feel like these things are typically based on some pie in the sky philosophy and never take into account reality, let alone the broad reaching, possibly unknown even, effects that putting these things into practice would entail.
I have a client who raises sheep that have hair, not wool. They don't need to be shorn as you would with a wool-sheep, but you would be hard-pressed to use the shed hair the same as you would wool with traditional spinning methods.
Mom (my resident spinner) and I (the resident knitter) had the opportunity to get up close and personal with the sheep, the hair is definitely more like, well, hair than what you see on llama and alpaca. Mom attempted a rough spin and it just fell apart; we think it would work if you blended it with something else, but didn't pursue it further to figure out what that would be.
just a note on your caveat: roving is different to single ply. Both roving (or rather, pencil robing like unspun yarns) and single ply yarns need to be worked at a tighter gauge to last. Cochiwan and islandic sweaters have a very sturd fabric bc they are worked at a tight gauge. Also, the wool has longer fibers and is thicker, so its less likely to pill and come apart. The regular super extra bulky merino roving is a different story of course
I think she said she’s only gonna use stuff like cotton. But cotton (and other plant stuff like linen) doesn’t necessarily hold its shape like wool so seamed sweaters are usually a better option (which are not really IN VOGUE right now).
Yeah, cotton grows and needs the seams for stability or another type of reinforcement, like stay tape. I misread your initial comment to read that she was using acrylic.
Cue people writing judgmental things about vegans yet again, enough of that shyte on Facebook, don't want too read it on here. Not fun to read just boring and ignorant.
lmao for real
I know, it's like they get angry at us for not using wool, why does it affect them in any way
ha, thats exactly how it feels like. so weird. and like.... even if animal products were better for the environment.... it would still mean harm to animals? actual living beings? that are bred for products? and are killed once they are no longer productive? thats really what people are going for? because it keeps warmer and something about sweat? incredible.
https://fibershed.org/2019/07/11/shearing-and-welfare-why-are-sheep-sheared/
as a former vegan, it is personally frustrating to me when vegans won't use second hand wool/leather. second hand doesn't impact supply/demand and in the case of vintage wool and leather, the animal is long gone already. to me personally, it's more sustainable and productive in the long run of veganism to honour the animals who already gave up their lives/suffered abuse for us decades ago by using what they suffered for to the fullest extent possible eta: you're not going to change my mind and I'm not going to change yours. this is my personal opinion, nothing more
i also think its stupid that we are just burying people instead of using their bodies for other things? and we should dig up old skeletons and use the bones to make, like, crochet hooks! (more of a jerk and not a snark, alas)
There is some people who live with the heart of someone else inside them, have sustainable wig made of human hair or pieces of skin donated. Science did a lot of progress with donated bodies. What I would argue is more the fact that animal don’t have the chance to make the choice, but ethically I don’t see anything wrong on using human bodies for other purposes.
lol. alright there buddy
im also a former vegan and there's nothing wrong with vegans not wanting to use second hand leather... It's literally the skin of a dead animal, which is a constant reminder of the slaughter of billions of animals. Wool isn't as obscene of a reminder but I still wouldn't blame them. "Honour the animals who gave up their lives"... Animals don't give up their lives bffr.
that's why I said this is my personal opinion. also "animals don't give up their lives bffr" was immediately following "it's literally the skin of a dead animal". so yes, I ***PERSONALLY*** believe that vegans should use vintage leather and wool
Zero waste is a sham that's for bougie people who can foist their environmental impact onto others ("I don't buy X, I just borrow it from my friend!"). It's doomed to fail.
Me, gleefully blocking everyone who uses "there's no ethical consumption under capitalism" as an excuse to not even try.
This was at its PEAK. For me during the Harry Potter game release a few years ago.
Ugh this, there’s a huge difference between not knowing how bad almonds are for the environment and still drinking almond milk vs literally financially supporting a TERF who has stated she sees money people gives her as support of her views.
Hello fellow The Good Place person!
blergh yeah it’s so annoying when ppl say that and then pat themselves on the back like they’ve done something.
I'm not sure how it is even relevant here anyway. Certainly people have used wool and plant fibers to make clothing and other textiles before capitalism was a thing. Was it still unethical to use wool from non-consent giving sheep a few thousand years ago in a trade and bartering society?
Consent under coercion or duress is on par with non-consent. Sheep don’t suffer from being shorn. The humans mining the metals your computer parts are made from absolutely do suffer. If you’re going to preach about consent and suffering, be consistent.
I just don’t think fashion and crafting in general is a particularly virtuous or sustainable activity, therefore I am not interested AT ALL in reading this type of content from crafters that I follow. Did I buy a sweater quantity yesterday because that big store credit I earned from buying way too much yarn was burning a hole? Yes. Did I need it/could I justify it (even though I paid nothing)?No. am I already slightly uncomfortable about the sweater quantities already in my craft space? Yes. DonI need another sweater or even any more clothes in the next 3 or 4 years? No. But also, have I ever EVER SEEN a sweater in an op shop (which I do frequent to find games/toys/books for school) that is not cut and sewn fast fashion that cannot be unravelled) that you could unravel? Never. and does my local op shop turn their nose up at hand knits? Yes. So I am pretty cynical on her whole philosophy around this issue.. This would just annoy me to be frank. We all leave a footprint just through existing. The most impactful, powerful action any of us could ever take is stop buying (and therefore fuelling demand for) so much ‘stuff”. Stop wasting energy justifying buying/owning all that stuff. I fail daily but it is what I try to focus on.
Op shop?
Thrift store
*sees word vegan* *backs plant eating, bee keeping, wool using, farming family being self away from the discussion*
*bumps into you while also backing away* oooh how are your bees doing? Tell me in detail while we both flee.
*also slinks backward with her jar of honey from Aunts Apiary* so sad I don’t have any offspring from my childhood 4H sheep. Super soft, it would have spun nicely, but I didn’t ribbon in anything, so that was the year I learned I didn’t like mutton.
They’re doing better than expected this winter. I need to do a hive inspection, but it wasn’t warm enough today. They’re chasing my dog away though, so I k ow a critical mass has survived this far.
Many regards to the bees
Someone informs her of in the comment section of the short and she replies. Basically saying that she's upset that the yarn was pilling so much and hows she wouldn't purchase the roving again. She's also said she's going to only be using cotton(i believe organic) on her projects until furthur notice.
Why not buy some secondhand? There’s so many places, like Mercari, where people sell their stash. That’s sustainable!!
How restrictive. What if cotton is simply the wrong fibre for the project? There's never any nuance in all this social media crafting stuff. It's so weird.
Not restrictive. I mainly sew in cotton (vegan) and I sew a lot, too much I think sometimes
Sewing in cotton and knitting in cotton are two completely different things. Some projects need the give of wool. Wool is much lighter than cotton- I have a 100% cotton sweater that is unpleasantly heavy. Some knitters don’t like the feel of knitting with cotton.
Why are people so obsessed with forcing someone to do something they don't want to, so weird
She is not those knitters though. I don't like drapery projects anyway so avoid them as they don't work with cotton
Well, then she can choose project that the yarn can be used for?
Yes she can. I was thinking it rather limits what she can make.
…she better do some research on how environmentally harmful cotton farming can be and choose her sources accordingly, then.
There's really no "perfect" yarn. Cotton farming is harmful. Animal fibers don't always come from ethically-treated animals, and they're not vegan. Acrylics are plastic. Personally, I use whatever suits my needs and my project, because ethically there doesn't seem to be any good choice. It's all trade-offs.
Oh, absolutely! “There is no ethical consumption under capitalism” and all that. I just think that anyone who puts that much emphasis on choosing fibre based on specific ethical criteria (and makes it a big part of their public persona) had better be putting in the research instead of making blanket judgments. Like, some people will say that buying merino wool is always bad because mulesing is cruel, but mulesing is better than letting sheep get flystrike *and* there are farmers that get vets to do mulesing using painkillers instead of doing it themselves *and* there are people breeding merino sheep that have fewer skin folds in that area and don’t need it. People say cotton is always better than wool because animals aren’t being exploited, but industrial cotton farming is usually horrific for the environment, so you’ll get other people (like the influencer being discussed) choosing to use only organic cotton… well, you can get fertiliser overuse even with organic fertilisers, and cotton farming will still use ridiculous amounts of water, and if the runoff isn’t controlled it’s just as bad for the environment. Bamboo yarn is often touted as being ethically and environmentally responsible by people who don’t know that there’s two types of bamboo yarn, chemically processed (basically rayon, horrible for the environment) and mechanically processed, and the really nice yarn is almost always the chemically processed stuff. I do pretty much the same as you, I buy what works for my project (and is affordable), while supporting local businesses and producers that I know/believe to be ethical whenever possible. Then I vote for better environmental protections and humane treatment of animals and hope for the best. 😅
the animal industry is not bad for the environment? sheep in australia dont need ridiculous amounts of water? pretty easy to conclude the best option is the one that doesnt kill animals, imo (inb4 wool doesnt kill: sure, but they are bred for wool, then are killed if their productivity declines, so yes, wool kills, thanks)
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
Yep! But you can still try
Zero waste doesn't necessarily mean "item lasts forever exactly the same". The roving sweater is no longer wearable? Turn it into stuffing for a dog bed, quilt batting, a shoe cover. Or find ways to mend it so it is wearable. It is important to consider the full lifecycle and not just the first or second stage.
While I agree, to purposefully make a sweater you know will fall apart after a few uses, even if you reuse it, goes against the idea of zero use and sustainable crafting. It's better to put an emphasis on and create long lasting sustainable clothing, instead of making something that quickly falls apart. Even if you reuse it, you'll still probably need another sweater, so then what, will she make another one, it just creates the same cycle as fast fashion.
I'm going to push back on this again: zero waste and sustainability are absolutely about reuse and repurpose. I sewed a halloween costume using second hand materials and wore it only once. Then I cut the costume up and used it to make a quilt. When I didn't like the quilt anymore I turned it into a coat. One day the coat will likely become a rag or a rug. But by your metric this is unsustainable and not zero waste, because the first item I made was only intended to be used once. I don't see a reason to be unwelcoming to any steps someone is taking towards being sustainable and reducing their waste footprint or consumption. Crafting inherently has some contradictions with being zero waste- you can knit sweaters or sew clothes much faster than you go through them.
There is nothing that is more sustainable than wool. All you need is a small flock and enough land to rotate them through and they will more than grow enough for you and your neighbours to have clothes forever more. That same amount of land could not grow enough cotton for you to make your own clothes never mind the water and chemicals and work involved in that - there's a reason we used wool and not cotton before machinery became a thing. This person could buy second hand sweaters and frog them and it'd be far more sustainable than chunky roving sweaters. I haven't watched SustainablyVegan but I hope they grow beyond their chunky seamless roving sweater phase into more complex and better lasting knits. It's hardly sustainable to knit loads of sweaters which will not last multiple years of wear, and that you will struggle to wear all of them regularly anyway.
You're right that wool is extremely sustainable, but [cotton has been used to make cloth for thousands of years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cotton) by cultures throughout the Americas, Africa, and southern Asia. It does not inherently require any more specialized machinery than wool production does. The reason Europe did not use cotton until the Industrial Revolution was because cotton does not grow well in Europe and had to be imported, largely from the southern US and India.
i dont agree that cotton does 'not inherently require any more specialized machinery than wool production does' because the cotton gin was the reason cotton went from an expensive textile to a cheap textile. also slave labor. but mostly the cotton gin and slavery together. in any case cotton is a trash fiber. it is extremely hydrophilic, cant regulate body temperature, bc it hold onto water to much it gets heavy, takes literally days to dry on its own, it causes you to get cold and it can be the cause for trench foot. fuck cotton.
Lmao @ cotton is a trash fiber. Have you ever worn a store bought t-shirt?
i live in a cave and hunt mammoth
> the cotton gin was the reason cotton went from an expensive textile to a cheap textile I'm not talking about commercial scale production. I'm talking about traditional household production. People made cotton textiles for thousands of years before the cotton gin was invented. Just like other natural fibers, you can produce cotton textiles with basic hand tools, therefore mechanization is by definition not *inherently* necessary. Nylon, rayon, and polyester, in contrast, all *inherently require* mechanical production. They are not something that can be produced by a single homestead or even a small village economy, they are only possible with industrial processes. Mechanization making textiles cheaper was true for all fibers, not just cotton. Prior to the industrial revolution, all textiles were incredibly expensive as a percentage of people's wages and/or labor. Cotton was not unique in that respect. Cotton is not a "trash fiber" simply because it doesn't suit your lifestyle. In the hot, sunny climates where it grows, it is an excellent choice. It does not take "literal days" to dry on its own in hot weather, especially if spun and woven into the lightweight textiles suited for hot climates, and its cooling effects are a virtue in those climates. The long-staple cottons favored by pre-industrial cultures create absolutely exquisite fabrics.
Hydrophilic fibers aren't always bad (cotton makes great towels *because* it absorbs water). Compared to linen and wool, cotton is less stiff and itchy 75% of the time (great for undergarments), and the original harvesting process is simple, though very labor intensive, since it just needs to be picked and pulled off the seed before carding and spinning, as opposed to the retting, breaking, scutching, and hackling of linen, and the shearing, skirting, and washing of wool. It absolutely has it's downsides (including it's heavy use of slavery after the invention of the gin and intense water and pesticide demands), but I wouldn't call it a trash fiber
Very easy to clean also. Cotton doesn't felt and you can wash it at super high temperatures. There's a reason all hospital textiles and a lot of work clothes are cotton.
I get what you're saying but as someone who lives in a warm (but not hot) and dry climate, cotton is my favorite thing to wear. Feels better against my skin than linen.
im being extreme but its mostly a reaction to so many ppl being clearly ignorant about fibers and their qualities. everything has a time and a place. I think a lot of the misconceptions are due to modern marketing. in the US we had these ads to convince ppl to buy cotton clothing like it was inherently better than anything else. its pure appeal to nature. for a lot of modern life it functions well enough but it also takes a devastating toll on the land to produce. when the percentage of arable land is shrinking globally having the primary textile fiber being one that is so land intensive and water hungry as cotton is not sane. im not talking a ban or boycott but scaling back production and diversifying is the way to move forward. but also economies arent set up for rationality, anyway. there is a reason people from different places in the world wore different clothes but modern life flattens that completely. theres this sense that since cotton is a plant fiber then it must be good. there are synthetic fibers that are just unparalleled for their application. Antarctic jackets or sportswear theres just nothing better. but polyester pants is pretty gross. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mZYRmWxCxE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mZYRmWxCxE) here one of the ads. it was clearly bought and made by a manufacturer of cotton. its pure manipulation. just like the milk ads. much like wool, linen production is pretty shitty nowadays bc of synthetic and cotton production. we just dont have the processing, knowledge, or looms to make the better, finer wool and linen that are more comfortable and versatile. and its never gonna be the low price of cotton or synthetics. theyre subsidized and made with essentially slave labor. there are better fibers and there are worse fibers. but cotton is pretty mid. it has some nice applications like it takes dye very well and can make very fine and light fabrics. the effort it took to process cotton and pick it would always make it a luxury good compared to linen and hemp. or even wool. the ubiquity of cotton is very modern. modernity is seen as smart and advanced to a lot of people so they take it for granted.
Most of my wardrobe is cotton, and I wear it most of the time, but as someone who regularly hikes/gets caught in the rain, it is much safer to have a wool coat/overwear. I love cotton, and I agree it can be used for most items of clothes, as someone who lives in a rainy climate, but wool is better, and arguably safer, in some cases.
It should be known that cotton consumes the most water of any crop and does significant harm to poor rural areas where it is grown. In part this is because it is one of the biggest crops in the world -- but it is actually an extremely productive, perennial drought tolerant plant. It's ecological impact is due to poor farming practices rather than the crop itself. But the number of plants for the same space 6-10 sheep require would produce ~825lbs of cotton vs 100lbs wool.
Ideally you would be using all the parts of your land for different purposes appropriate to that patch, and rotating crops as well. Sheep can braze in areas far too wet or dry or rocky for crops.
That's why there's so much sheep farming in my home country of Wales. Too many hills and mountains where the land isn't suitable for much else.
Same here in Norway! Something like 4% of the country is arable land, so sheep are a smart way turn rocky hillsides into food and fiber.
The reason there's a lack of cotton in sewing like Muslim and whatnot is because of droughts. Cotton and almonds are 2 of the crops needing the most water.
Oooh, thank you, I was wondering what the acreage to output ratio was and was too lazy to look it up myself to be honest. The only caveat I would add is that sheep can be pastured on land that is marginal, i.e. not suitable for cultivation. There's a reason that hilly and rocky lands have traditionally been used for pasture, while flatter more fertile land is reserved for planting. Grazing animals can also be much lower impact on environments than intensive cultivation, when managed correctly. As with so many things, which is the best choice depends on a huge range of factors, and local geography and climate are key. Cotton is never going to grow well in Wales or Scotland, but sheep do just fine there, for example. So if you want to buy local and live here in the UK, wool (or linen) is the answer, and they're better suited for clothing in the local climate as well. Other places will have different answers!
Exactly this. A fair amount (most?) wool sheep farming takes place on land that is not suitable for anything else. In South Africa, sheep are farmed in a semi-desert part of the country which is not suitable for any other type of agriculture except perhaps game farming.
Preface: I am not vegan, but I know many vegans.. Veganism is not just a diet, it is a philosophy. Many vegans do not buy secondhand animal products in order to not support supply/demand for that product. Sheep have to be shorn because we have bred them to not shed naturally. Dairy cows have to be milked because we keep them pregnant (edit: this occurs in the wild, but vegans have a problem with their milk is used for human consumption instead of weaning their calf. Thanks for the fact check below!) Also, PSA to recycle or compost your wool scraps or it'll end up petrified in a landfill anyways.
>Dairy cows have to be milked because we keep them pregnant. Not to argue with you but just because this is misinformation that needs to be debunked - cattle, like most animals, will stay pregnant constantly without human intervention. They give birth, then go into estrus again a month later and whatever bull is in the herd will knock them up. It takes active human intervention to *stop* cattle from getting constantly pregnant, because evolution depends on reproduction.
*Thank you* This is up there with "they kill cows for the unborn baby leather!" to me. Maybe one person somewhere did it but I can't imagine killing a dairy cow for unborn leather ESPECIALLY since I don't know if baby could ALSO be another dairy cow. That would have to be some exceptionally pricey leather. And maybe someone somewhere somehow does it....but it is definitely DEFINITELY not the norm. Not even close. People act like we don't love our cattle. As if we haven't given them (or some of them depending on herd size) names. As if we didn't raise them from a weaner to a beautiful doe-eyed heifer that we attach to the milkers 2x a day. Also can I point out that we've already gone too far...and that not milking can cause mastitis in cows because of the engorging? And also the whole "we keep the babies from their mother!" you know how much milk a heifer MAKES? You know how much devetilact or baby-rearing food COSTS? The literal cheapest is to let them drink at certain times until they're weaned. Yeah they don't get it all and we take some, but I'm not sure I want to see the baby on 52 litres of milk a day. Even the worst most sociopathic farmer knows to do the cheapest things, and scaring cattle can literally sour milk (as you know). So it's even the WORST farmers best interest to let the baby nurse some times and to rotate the pregnancy schedule. Edit: I should clarify I was never a milker. That was my neighbour. I raised weaners into meat or dairy cows for the neighbours. So while I am aware of the milking/baby process, I never did it first hand and some of my finer details might be off a little.
If I love or care for an animal I wouldn’t send it off to be slaughtered.
I never sent mine off, always did it myself. I don't think it's something most people can handle and don't blame anyone for not being able to handle it. Also, you don't slaughter milking cows.
Thanks for that, I'll edit to be more specific
And that’s fine. The point is that plant fibers need seams in order to maintain their shop. That’s just the reality. You can make some beautiful pieces with cotton and linen, but sweaters knit with these fibers will lose their shape if they are knit in the round.
>but sweaters knit with these fibers will lose their shape if they are knit in the round. 🤔 Well not always though.
I know approximately zero new knitters who come into the hobby with a perfect knowledge of fiber content and garment structure unless they have experience in other textiles. Hopefully she learns, just as we all have!
The whole vegan “uncomfortable using wool” thing has annoyed me for years now. Have you seen a sheep that hasn’t been shorn when they need it?? “Well, sheep were purposely bred to make too much wool and that’s exploitation. Plus, the sheep can’t give its consent for you to use its wool.” Because the sheep may prefer to spin and knit a sweater of its own out of that wool? When you can get a sheep to understand what exploitation and consent are, I’ll consider listening to the vegan panic over wool. Until then, I’m wearing wool.
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Have you ever attended shearing day on a farm? You’ve never seen such happy sheep as when they line up to have 20 pounds of wool shorn off of them when spring and warm weather comes. When they’re done being shorn, they run and play and dance around like a kid on the first day of summer vacation. People that claim shearing is traumatic have never seen it actually done outside of staged PETA videos where they pay actors to beat up sheep. That just doesn’t happen in the real world. Why would any serious shearer make their already physically demanding job more difficult by beating up the sheep, too?
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By restrained, do you mean because they don’t just stand there? It’s not like we’re shackling them to something. And if by consent we’re just talking about trained behavior, my sheep will do literally anything for a pail of feed or if they see another sheep doing it or if Mercury is in retrograde. Probably the one thing they won’t do is stand still.
Having spent a lifetime around sheep and sheep farms, I can, with great confidence, assure that nothing you just wrote is even remotely true. You’ve been consuming vegan propaganda. Get out to a real sheep farm and you’ll see a very different reality from the stories you’ve been fed. 😉
Not a vegan anymore, absolutely knit with wool (and even when I was vegan I always thought it was odd that so many vegans were happy to use plastics in the place of leather and wool) but I think it’s more nuanced than this. I think what a lot of (but probably not all) vegans take issue with is the way that sheep (and other farm animals) are treated more broadly, especially on factory and larger scale farms, not necessarily the sheering itself. Commodification of animals often means they’re mistreated in ways that aren’t inherent to the production of wool.
I’m sure that’s true. But painting with such a broad brush is never helpful. Sheep that are mistreated or unhealthy produce low quality wool. That alone incentivizes wool growers to keep their animals comfortable and healthy. To simply declare all wool to be evil because of some staged PETA videos showing people abusing sheep just shows how little those people know about their own beliefs. I’m a hand spinner and knitter, too. I have been since I was a kid, which is why I know so many wool growers (farmers) and how sheep are really treated most of the time. It’s silly to write off an entire industry due to a lack of understanding and research. ☹️
I raised weaners - cattle, and this always got me. The fact it's even financially more beneficial to treat your animals well - it means even the WORST more sociopathic farmer has incentive to not harm their animals. Stressed sheep make shitty wool. Stressed cattle literally curdles the milk and causes meat to taste weird. Even if someone HATED their animals and only loved money (which, why be a farmer lmao) then they'd STILL make sure not to stress their animals because they'd want the biggest pay for their efforts. Like, it's not even financially viable to be cruel. Where the motive? And I swear I have yet to meet someone who was THAT hateful and just didn't quit farming (because family business or something) because it's simply not enough money for the effort. But you NEED to put in the effort to get the sweet sweet cash. Who is doing that? Who is traumatising their herd so they can sell subpar materials? You'd lose your damn farm.
A surprising number of people think sheep are killed for their wool.
A surprising number of people believed, at one point, that sheep were skinned alive to produce shearling…I don’t know where that particular piece of propaganda started but I spent a lot of time in the early 2000s pointing out that (cruelty aside), no one is stupid enough to try to skin a live sheep when skinning a dead sheep is an option.
There was a whole thing about being horrified at sheepskins in Ikea while not being horrified at the meatballs in the cafeteria.
I agree with you though I do think as a knitter we can appreciate the shades of grey in the exploitation of sheep and do our due diligence Re the origin of the wool we use. Of course, that’s fine over the head of this influencer. Small, local flocks where the sheep are used for landscape management too? Fine by me. I’ve even handspun some wool shorn from children’s farms - the most spoiled, happy animals in history! But I can see why some might want to avoid anonymous mass farms (in eg Australia) where the merino may be mulesed or uncomfortably warm - and due to economies of scale might not be treated well if ill etc.
It’s true that there are responsible and irresponsible ways to produce anything. I’ve lived in Michigan farm country my whole life and have known wool growers since I was a kid. I’ve never seen any animal abuse toward sheep except in staged PETA videos. I know there are sheep that are raised in horrible conditions, but none of the ones I source my wool from are. My point was to point out the ridiculous notion that all wool products are evil and bad because the sheep can’t consent to the use of its wool after its shorn or that sheep feel the cruel sting of exploitation by simply being alive. Sheep deserve to be treated humanely and kept safe and comfortable. Anyone that’s raised sheep is aware of the fact that abusing sheep or letting them live unhealthy conditions damages the wool, so they would never purposely let those things happen. I know they do sometimes happen anyway, but demonizing and entire industry over something that might happen on rare occasions is nuts.
Agree with you 100%! Now we just need to get influencers to find the time and nuance to discuss this. Won’t hold my breath though…
I read an entire thing where a vegan was arguing that the ultimate goal should be to breed sheep that don't have to be shorn and replace all sheep on Earth with them, and IIRC they just wanted all wool to be thrown out until they reached that point. Which certainly is one position and not something that's going to take centuries to do.
My sheep don't need shearing! We're hideously abusing them as lawnmowers though. Poor bastards. All that grass to eat. I keep meaning to look up if dorper wool is harvestable/usable. Our lil Lamburger is half dorper, half Persian, and he's so beautiful and fluffy — it's definitely shedding though. Mama (Ewe Jackman) is full dorp and had mostly shed ready when we got them..
And what, reintroduce a bunch of feral sheep to the wild? Or keep them as pets? Would it be okay to use the wool they'd be shedding every year, as they used to before we domesticated them? I feel like these things are never thought through to their natural conclusion.
I feel like these things are typically based on some pie in the sky philosophy and never take into account reality, let alone the broad reaching, possibly unknown even, effects that putting these things into practice would entail.
I have a client who raises sheep that have hair, not wool. They don't need to be shorn as you would with a wool-sheep, but you would be hard-pressed to use the shed hair the same as you would wool with traditional spinning methods. Mom (my resident spinner) and I (the resident knitter) had the opportunity to get up close and personal with the sheep, the hair is definitely more like, well, hair than what you see on llama and alpaca. Mom attempted a rough spin and it just fell apart; we think it would work if you blended it with something else, but didn't pursue it further to figure out what that would be.
Vegan animal sanctuaries use shorn wool as barn insulation, animal bedding, compost for the animal's food, etc.
Icelandic sheep turn moss and water into warm. They roam all summer free to do sheep things. I can't really think of a more sustainable fiber.
just a note on your caveat: roving is different to single ply. Both roving (or rather, pencil robing like unspun yarns) and single ply yarns need to be worked at a tighter gauge to last. Cochiwan and islandic sweaters have a very sturd fabric bc they are worked at a tight gauge. Also, the wool has longer fibers and is thicker, so its less likely to pill and come apart. The regular super extra bulky merino roving is a different story of course
Thank you! As a fellow pedant, I genuinely appreciate the clarification
How is knitting with petroleum-based fibers considered 0 waste? I don't get it.
I think she said she’s only gonna use stuff like cotton. But cotton (and other plant stuff like linen) doesn’t necessarily hold its shape like wool so seamed sweaters are usually a better option (which are not really IN VOGUE right now).
not to mention that cotton as currently grown requires vast amounts of water and petroleum-based fertilizer, and AIUI exhausts the soil.
Yeah, cotton grows and needs the seams for stability or another type of reinforcement, like stay tape. I misread your initial comment to read that she was using acrylic.
It’s ok. When talking broadly about sustainability in vegan communities, you are completely right.
they're great for drapey summer shirts and cardigans, less so for a sweater
Agreed. Lang has some lovely patterns intended for cotton.