5 Yarn Options for Vegans

Crafting a Green World has a really great article about eco-friendly vegan crochet. One of the highlights is a section on vegan yarn. The section notes that although synthetic yarns are often animal-free, they are often made from petroleum products, which are not eco-friendly. The article suggests a number of vegan green alternatives including the following 5 yarn types:

1. Organic Cotton Yarn. There are many different options for this type of yarn, including Lion Brand’s organic cotton yarn (pictured above), but one in particular that you might want to check out is Ecobutterfly, a business with “a dedicated focus on organic, wild crafted, native, fair trade, recycled, sustainable and creative fiber arts”.
2. Hemp Yarn. This type of yarn can come unfinished in natural colors or dyed to be more colorful so you’ll want to make sure that the dyed kind is still eco-friendly. One good thing about hemp yarn is that it’s very durable. Check out the All Weather Hemp Scarf on CrochetMe.
3. Bamboo. If you want to stay vegan then you need to stay away from some of the more popular bamboo blends and go for a true bamboo yarn. Bernat Bamboo is an example of a vegan option.
4. Banana Silk. This unique yarn is made entirely from banana fibers. It works up like a soft bulky yarn. If you really want to be vegan then you should look for banana silk yarn that is reclaimed from the clothing industry. See RecycledSilk for more info on that.
5. Recycled / Reclaimed Yarn. Anytime that you reclaim yarn or other materials and recycle them into yarn for your own crochet then you’re taking an eco-friendly action. T-shirt yarn (or tarn), plastic bag yarn (or plarn) and repurposed clothing yarn are all examples of this type of green vegan yarn.

Some people want to know what about silk yarn? Sorry but it isn’t vegan because it’s made by the silkworm so that cool new DayGlo silkworm option I mentioned a week or two ago won’t count as a vegan yarn.

Have you tried any of these green vegan yarns? What brand / type? What did you think of it?