When browsing thrift sweaters, you will quickly gain the skills to identify fiber types by look and feel, but in the beginning, you have to spend a lot of time looking at tags. After a while, you learn to sort out the acrylic and other manmade fibers and just check the tags of those that look promising. Here’s a breakdown of the types of yarn you might find and some advice on frogging them.

Wool

You know wool. It’s just spun sheep hair (fleece). This is the warmest yarn on earth, but sometimes too itchy for sensitive skin. Some softer varieties of wool are super soft to the touch and won’t feel anything but luxurious to most. But some poor souls (like me) can’t tolerate wool next to their skin at all. Standard wool is harvested from adult sheep. But there are many other variations of wool, including some from animals other than sheep. Wool may come from sheep, goats, rabbits, alpacas, camels and even domestic pets if you are willing to spin it.

• Virgin wool – virgin wool just means the wool was sheered from the animal, not made by recycling existing wool sweaters. It is not to be confused with lamb’s wool.
• Lamb’s wool – that from the first shearing of a young lamb
• Merino wool – this wool is harvested from one of many breeds of Merino sheep. Once used only to describe wool from Merino sheep raised in Spain, Australia and New Zealand’s Peppin Merino was found to be just as smooth and soft. Merino now applies to yarn from any Merino sheep.
• Shetland wool – harvested from a breed of sheep originating from Scotland’s Shetland Islands. This wool is courser than average, making it suitable for tweed. It is commonly found in brightly colored knit cardigans.
• Icelandic wool – this wool comes from a particular breed of sheep found in, you guessed it, Iceland. The dual coat of these animals produces a long, sturdy outer fiber (Tog) and a shorter inner coat (Thel) that is baby soft and downy, much like mohair.
• Washable wool – this wool has been treated to remove the outer fuzzy layers of fiber. These prevents the wool from felting when washed.
• Mohair and Cashmere are super soft types of wool coming respectively Angora and Kashmir goats.

Coarser wools are less likely to break during frogging, but they are also prone to felting on you, making the ripping process difficult and painstaking. Never rip lamb’s wool either. It’s just too weak and the yarn will break. Try felting these garments instead.

Merino wool frogs very nicely. The going is smooth, easy and results in a luxurious wool that anyone would enjoy working with. I have yet to come across Icelandic wool or mohair.

Cashmere is touch and go. The fibers are weaker than ideal, but it doesn’t break so much that you can’t frog it. Just expect more knots in the yarn than usual. Cashmere pulls apart nicely while frogging and the going is easy.

Angora – this is simply the hair of the Angora rabbit spun into wool.

Never frog Angora unless it is 20% or less of the content and blended with other stronger fibers like cotton. Angora is often too weak to withstand frogging.

Alpaca and vicuña – The alpaca is a mountain animal commonly found in Peru, Bolivia and Chile. The wool is durable, yet softer than standard sheep’s wool. Vicuñas are wild animals that cannot be domesticated. Their soft and silky wool is harvested by gathering a group in the wild to sheer them. Alpacas are descendent from these mysterious creatures.

Llamas and Camels - Llamas are somewhere between a sheep and a camel, making a sturdy but soft wool. The fleece of camels is rough an only used for industrial purposes.

Take care frogging these fibers. You may be better off felting them, since they tend to grab easily and will be difficult to frog. It’s a shame to damage these fibers trying to pull the yarn apart when you could easily felt them for a sewing project instead.

Plant-based Fibers

Cotton

Cotton is known for breathability, absorbency and hypo-allergenic properties. Cotton is soft, so it is often associated with baby yarn and baby projects. There is no stretch to cotton, unless it is blended with other fibers. It is most commonly found blended 50% with acrylic, but may also be used with linen, silk or flax in high-end garments. You may also come across mercerized cotton. This yarn has a shiny luster created through a chemical treatment process and removal of cotton yarn’s trademark “fuzz.” Studies show that this kind of cotton can absorb more dye, so you may find bolder colors than available in standard cotton.

Cotton is often very easy to frog, but it can be unpredictably stubborn. The same sweater from the same manufacturer in the same size, but different color, can behave in opposite ways. Two 100% cotton Lands End Men’s Large sweaters of the same knit guage and yarn weight, one in yellow and one in orange, taught me this lesson. The orange one was a breeze. As I happily moved on to the yellow, I soon realized it was not going to be easy and ended up scrapping it. That’s just how frogging goes sometimes.

Linen

Linen is made from fibers of the flax plant. It has a shiny luster and soft feel, like cornsilk. Finding linen sweaters to frog is a rare occurrence. Linen is sometimes blended with cotton or silk, but rarely found as 100% yarn. If you find a 100% linen yarn sweater, grab it. You’re holding onto about $100 there. In most cases, you’ll only find it woven, which is no good for frogging.

Ramie

Ramie is a strong natural fiber that is not found in retail yarns. It is often used as a blend with cotton in industrial garment yarn. While it holds a luster, the fiber breaks down quickly. A repeated fold in a garment made of Ramie is likely to become a permanent crease. Avoid frogging ramie. It’s not worth your time to frog a cotton ramie blend. The fiber is so cheap that you are likely to find only ramie in sweaters with surged seams anyway, which are no good for frogging.

Silk

Silk is a strong material with a lustrous shine. In commercial garment yarn, it is usually blended with cotton and linen. Silk tends to break easily when in yarn. It may also pill and fuzz. I don’t recommend frogging silk sweaters.

Bamboo

This fiber has been cropping up in retail stores of late as an organic natural fiber. It’s shiny, soft and cool, resembling flax. You won’t find 100% bamboo in garment yarns just yet. If you do find it, grab it!

Manufactured Fibers

Rayon and nylon are manufactured fibers often used to balance softer natural fibers like silk, angora and mohair. Of these, rayon is the most likely to fool you. You may see it called viscose in some garments. Rayon was originally used as a substitute for silk, but it can also make velvety materials and comes in many configurations.

Acrylic and polyester often show up in commercial garment yarns as well. Acrylic has been improving its ability to mimic cotton and can sometimes food even a trained thriftier. The biggest giveaway for acrylic is pilling. It forms little balls on the yarn that must be pulled off. Cashmere and angora can pill too, but they are easy to distinguish from synthetic acrylic.

There’s little point to frogging synthetic yarns, unless your aim is just to keep them out of the landfill. It’s a noble cause, but it won’t yield valuable yarn. I’ve tried it once or twice and have only been marginally satisfied with the results.

Tags: fibers, frogging, recycling, ripping, yarn

Recycled Yarn.