Bamboo - good for me and you.

So, despite the facts that my in-laws are visiting and that I am due to give birth to my son at practically any minute (!), I'm just about finished with another rayon chenille scarf...

I'm of two minds about these rayon chenille scarves. The colors can be really nice, and the yarn works reasonably well in shadow-weave, my current obsession, but the yarn can be quite tangley sometimes and rayon, in theory at least, is a little bit of a turnoff. Though I'll take it any day over acrylic. BARF.

On the other hand, I can find rayon chenille for a reasonable price and am therefore able to offer these scarves at a much lower price than the ones I make from luxury fibers like Zephyr, alpaca, silk, bamboo, etc. And, when all is said and done, rayon chenille does create a lovely scarf after it's wet finished. Soft, drapey and cuddly, it feels nice against your skin...

But, I am happy to be just about done with this one so I can put some more of my new most favorite-ist yarn on my loom - bamboo! It's a man-made yarn, but it's made from the bamboo plant (yup, that nasty stuff that never seems to die if it manages to invade your garden - or at least a relative of the garden-invading bamboo). Bamboo groves are planted and harvested in three year cycles, are grown without pesticides or other nasties and are therefore ecologically sound and sustainable. And the resulting yarn is smooth and slippery enough that it's actually easier to work with than chenille, though the weaving goes a bit slower (it's a finer yarn than chenille, so you have more ends per inch in the warp and more picks per inch in the weft).

Hooray for environmentally friendly fibers! I really should look into working with hemp sometime...

Anyway, better yet, bamboo is unbelievably soft after wet finishing. It's amazing, like cashmere, but not fuzzy, if that makes sense, and it has a lovely sheen to it, too, like silk or Tencel.

I feel like I'm turning into a walking advertisement for this fiber. But I really do love it that much...

The purple scarf I posted below is made from a Zephyr/bamboo combination; it turned out so lovely to touch that I think I'll be doing that combo again, maybe with some blue bamboo this time. Really should buy some more colors - it's *darn* expensive, but worth it I think. Hooray for Christmas money!

Then it will be back to more chenille.