The challenge called Animals Stink When Wet (put forth by the always creative Lexi of Pluckyfluff) was this : spin a yarn that is non-animal, water resistant, and knit/crochetable. This yarn, do androids dream of electric sheep? is my answer to the challenge, yo. I offer it for your perusal, people of the internets. Pay close attention, there'll be a test later. Okay, not really a test, but a vote. Yep, a vote.

I have to be honest, the darker one was my original yarn, I had no adroid dreams of the lighter one. Of course, given the challenge, I jumped right to grocery bags, trash bags, bubble wrap, etc, you know, plastic stuff.

I started with a shredded black plastic yard bag, a huge roll of green packing plastic (think big-ass saran wrap), bubble wrap (both the plastic wrap and the bubble wrap were leftover from the recent sale of a pinball machine), shredded mesh sure-grip liner, a tangle of blood red nylon threads, black tencel, black ramie and metal studs (the kind I used to wear on my jackets, punker that I was).

I wanted to make it industrial, shiny, plastique -- that's where I started, hence all the uh...plastics. The colors, black, white, weird clear green, clear, red, lent themselves well to that end, I thought. However, while all of those things would be waterproof, they'd hardly be knitable/crochetable on their own, plus, if they did get wet, they could trap water and mildew (ewwww). My answer was to break out the tencel and ramie.

Ramie fairly water resistant, but more importantly, it's mold/mildew resistant, which is why it's so great for boat rigging. Tencel is just super cool! All shiny and shit. Plus it is good at wicking moisture (as in, any moisture that might get trapped in the crinks of the plastics). Finally, they'd both provide some softness, a dulling of the edges, I thought. So, I used the ramie as a core and spun the plastics around it, interjecting the bubbles and threads wherever my little heart desired. I then plied the whole thing by wrapping it in a 50/50 carded blend of ramie and tencel. The shine set my plastic heart a-patter.

Writing it out was as exhausting as doing it. Shew.

Okay, so shortly after completion, and believe me, it took a long freaking time to complete, I realized that it's not, you know, soft at all. It's knitable, but not wearable, at least not by itself.

Shit. Double shit. Shit on an organic, vegan icecream cone.

So I waited a few days. I'd like to say I was thinking, but most of those few days were spent spitting and cursing. And then I came back and tried again. I wanted to keep the look as much as I could, because that, I LOVED. I decided I'd use ecospun, whick has an inherent water resistance (once it's smooshed together, spun) being that it's 100% recycled plastic bottles. Most importantly, it's as soft as an electric sheep's arse.

So, after spinning some more ramie for a core, I corespun the ecospun big and fluffy, with the black bag shreds, the bloodred threads, the spiky sure-grip, the metal studs, and cocoons of the green plastic wrap. Finally, I wrapped the whole thing in the tencel/ramie blend, which I had to spin more of, of course.

Much better. Soft, in fact. Water resistant. Knitable. Wearable. Hot damn -- challenge complete.

September 5th these yarns will hang in the Yarn Museum and be voted on along with some other challengers. So, feel free to vote (5th-7th)!

I'm offering these 2 yarns together. The eco-spun yarn is soft enough and pliable enough to be used against the skin (a hat?) while the darker could be used at the top or as a stripe (for the hat?).

Do Androids dream of electric sheep?
65 yards/25 yards
US11+
$48.00
sold