Milk

This next yarn is pretty much made of magic.  And science.  So, it’s doubly cool.  Milk yarn is made by first taking dehydrating milk.  Then, the dehydrated milk is skimmed and the milk proteins are extracted.  These proteins are mixed with chemicals to make a solid that is extruded and spun into yarn.  Sounds totally easy and like something you could do in your kitchen, right?  Maybe not…

It’s a crazy complex process.  If you want more information about how exactly it all goes from milk to mittens, here are some stellar articles I found:

• Wear milk if you can't drink milk
• Milk yarn?  How does that work? (Part 1)
• Milk yarn?  How does that work? (Part 2)
• What is milk fiber?

Cool Milk Facts:

• It takes about 100 pounds of skim milk to make 3 pounds of milk fiber.
• The amino acids present in the fiber make it antibacterial and antifungal.
• Easy to dye: good color fastness, can dye under normal temperature.
• It absorbs moisture very well.

My Milk Yarn:

This was one of those random internet finds (in the days before milk yarn was widely available).  I was drawn to it because of the fiber, but couldn't resist the purchase because of the color.  This is Kollage Yarns Creamy in Curacao Blue. 

Texture: It lives in this weird corn/cashmere/cotton world.  It's delightful.  Soft and shiny.  It feels great in your fingers.  4.5 Yarngasms.

Durability:  I've worn my garment a TON and it holds up like a dream.  4 Yarngasms.

Frogability: I frogged it a time or two, but I would be hesitant of any more than that.  After a couple rounds of being knit and unknit, the twist was opening up and it felt like I was flirting with irreparably damaging the yarn.  2.5 Yarngasms.

Drape: It's so light, one might think that getting a milk garment to drape would be a lesson in futility (*cough* corn yarn *cough*), but that's not the case at all.  This yarn drapes in all the right ways; it opens up stitch patterns, but isn't heavy..  5 Yarngasms.

My Project:

I knit Urban by Veera Välimäki (Ravelry Link).  I was looking for a project that was light and summery since this yarn is perfect for a summer garment.  This pattern is fab on its own, but in the milk, fuhgeddaboudit.  I would make a million of these and wear them all the time.

This was such a fun yarn to work (not to mention the amazeballs colors that milk yarn comes in) with and it came with the added bonus of a shirt that I wear a lot, I mean A LOT, in the summer.  Try it.  I hope you like it as much as I do.