Quick poll: acrylic or cotton so far?
For your practice swatches, are you using acrylic or cotton? No wrong answer. I like acrylic for practicing because it's forgiving and cheap, but some of you prefer the feel of cotton in your hands already. Curious what everybody grabbed off the shelf.
Cotton for sure, no question about it!
Cotton, no contest, and you'll have to pry this opinion out of my cold dead hands 😊 acrylic is fine if you're making something that lives in a car or a diaper bag, but for anything you actually want to look nice for more then one washing... it pills, it goes fuzzy, it looks cheap at the end of the day (ironically, since it's usually cheaper lol)!! I did a whole side by side with dishcloths a while back, same pattern, and the cotton one still looks brand new and the acrylic looks like it went through a war. People love acrylic because it's soft and easy to find at any craft store but soft isn't the same as good?? Anyway that's just my two cents, ready for the pushback 😊❤️
Cotton pills too if it's a cheap blend, I don't care what anyone says! I've got dishcloths from cotton yarn that looked rough after a month because the yarn itself was junk, not because it was cotton! It's not the fiber, it's the QUALITY of what you're buying. I've used decent acrylic that held up fine through years of washing on baby blankets, no pilling, no fuzz, because I didn't buy the bargain bin stuff.
And for anything a baby's going to chew on or that needs washing constantly, I'll take acrylic every time. Cotton can get stiff and scratchy after enough washings if you're not careful, especially with hard water, which most of us have around here! So it's not as cut and dried as "cotton wins, no contest."
I've been quilting and sewing long en
Okay so I've literally been knitting since the 80s and I gotta say... both of you have a point but im still landing closer to Colette on this one, sorry not sorry 😊 Cathy's right that quality matters, for sure, im not gonna pretend all cotton is created equal, that's fair! But low key I think the hard water thing is a prep issue more than a fiber issue?? Like if you're not rinsing your handspun or handwashed cotton with a tiny bit of vinegar in the water occasionally it WILL get stiff, ask me how I know lol. I do it with my dishcloths every few months and mine are still soft after literal years! But the acrylic holding up fine for baby blankets thing..! I mean, sure, if you found a good brand, but I've wacthed too many acrylic blankets go a thought!
That's exactly why I mentioned it! Cotton doesn't hide a thing, every loose stitch shows up and tells on you. Acrylic will let you cheat a little and not notice till row twelve. Since this week's whole point is finding mistakes without falling apart over them, you're already ahead of the game grabbing cotton.
Okay I've been watching this thread like it's a sporting event 😊 Cathy, the "quality not fiber" point is fair, I'll give you that, but I still think you can buy a mediocre cotton and out-baby-blanket a good acrylic because of how the fibers age, not just wash! And Toni the vinegar rinse thing..... never heard that in my life but I'm trying it on my next batch, no shame. at the end of the day (ironically) I think you're both scouting for the same result, stuff that survives real use, you just landed on different brands doing the the the heavy lifting for you! I've picked up many half-finished acrylic projects at DI where you can just tell, the second you touch it, that it was never gonna hold up past year one! Cheap is cheap regardless of fiber, sure, but
acrylic for sure.