Flip flop baskets

The Knitting & Crochet Blog Week is over, and as much as I loved posting every day, I just can't keep it up. So here I am returning to my 2-4 posts per week.

 

I'll start by showing a recent, very happy FO or actually two - the recycled green baskets! Why are they recycled? The yarn which I made them from is called Novita Flip Flop and it's made out of 80% recycled plastic bottles! The rest is acrylics. And why are they green? Well, because they're recycled - and beause they actually are lime green! Here are the specs:

 

Pattern: Knitted baskets from Simple Knits for Easy Living by Erica Knight
Yarn: Novita Flip Flop, little less thand 3 balls (300 grams)
Needles: 5 mm to create a sturdy and stiff fabric (the yarn calls for 7-8-mm!)
Modifications, notes: I made the smaller bags (co 25 stitches) and didn't sew the pieces together with string but used the cast-off loose ends to do that.

 

These were really happy projects! Very quick to knit, lovely yarn and the results are useful products. I'm currently storing yarn in the baskets, and I think they're very suitable for that.

 

Now a few words about the yarn. As it is 80% polyester and 20% acrylic, you can imagine it's not the greates for wearing - rather sweaty and not very soft or smooth. But for projects like this it's great! Sturdy, funky colours and propably durable. I guess you could call it the "ecological yarn snob's favourite yarn"! I mean, it's recycled, so that's good, and that also makes it different, sort of fancier than your basic supermarket acrylic yarn, don't you think?

 

The yarn is available pretty much only in Finland as it is made by the Finnish yarn company Novita. It's a bulky yarn, supposed to be knit on 7-8 mm needles. It comes in 100 gram balls and has 125 meters per ball (that's 137 yards).

 

I really liked working with this yarn! I have one ball left, and as Nick told me the colour looked good on me as I was posing with one of the baskets on my head (LOL!) I'm planning on making a hat with it - let's see how the yarn works in garments.

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I've tried Red Heart Eco Ways which is 30% polyester made from recycled soda and water bottles. The rest is 70% acrylic. I made a knit bolero from it. The yarn was soft and not too stretchy when knit. I think it might pill easily with wear. It was fun to try it!

I've heard about yarns like that but I've yet to try them. I'm glad to hear it knits up well though.