Yarn Review: Rowan Revive

I discovered this yarn while shelf scanning at Charlotte Yarn.  My first look didn’t excite me.  Then I realized that this was part of the “Green  Yarn” explosion currently underway.  You know, the label includes things like “organic,” “recycled,” “all natural.”   Steve loves food ads that say the product is made from all natural ingredients.  The scientist in him points out that everything on this planet is natural, from nature, even the man made products which will outlive the cockroaches.  Oops, back to the topic.

Anyway, I picked it up and read the label.  Oh, my favorite fibers.  Revive is made from 36% recycled silk, 36% recycled cotton, and 28% recycled viscose (Rayon, my favorite man-made fiber).  It isn’t that I don’t care about the planet, I do.  It’s that I care more that the yarn I knit and wear feels great.  Bingo.  This one does.

The only negatives I can find are that it isn’t machine washable and dryable—-and what great yarn is?  It also doesn’t have memory;  when stretched, it doesn’t fully recover like wool does.  Well, Jane, you say, it isn’t wool, so get over it.  And I did.

It feels luscious in my hands as I knit.  Like raw silk.  A bit of texture, but never rough.  The plies, all 5 of them, are solidly twisted for a drapeable, yet sturdy yarn.  This yarn wants to go outside on a cool fall day.  It does.  It told me so.  The colors are all tweedy.  I can even see an occasional dot of bright silk.  There are so many natural colors in the plies, that it makes it very versatile for using with neutral solids.

I have made a hat out of it using some eyelet (yarn0ver) stitches.  It seemed to need to be a slouch hat because it wanted to show off its drape.  I used some textured stitch patterns to enhance the look inherent in the yarn. (Pattern available soon.)

This yarn sells for $10.98 a 50 gr. skein which has 137 yds.  Rowan recommends a gauge of 5.5 sts per inch on a US 6, which is what I got when I designed the hat.  They say to hand wash it in cool water.  This is Pink Granite, color number 00463.  This and other colors are available at Charlotte Yarn.

I need to go back and get some of the purple.

More later–

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