The Good, the Bad, & the Acrylic

What's the deal with acrylic yarn?

While I have grown a taste for fine fibers and handspun yarn, there are still some projects that I come crawling back to acrylics for. Acrylics are the yarns that populate most big-box craft stores. Lyon, Caron, Red Heart, Bernat, and Cascade are just a few of the brands available. We live in a time of plenty. Just 30 years ago, pretty much all acrylic yarn was the same scratchy stuff that immediately comes to mind, the yarn you'll find for $0.25 at every third yardsale and the yarn that your grandmother bequeathed you in a black plastic trash bag. However, technological advances have meant advances in yarn science, and there are many great acrylics available.

When I first started attending a semi-local spinning group, I brought a few things for show-and-tell. I brought a few skeins of handspun yarn and an acrylic afghan. The introvert in me reared her paper bag mask and I began to feel ashamed of my afghan. What was I thinking, bringing an acrylic project to show to a group of accomplished spinners? So when the first person asked about it, I actually apologized for it being acrylic. As soon as I saw her confused look and she said, "Oh, there's nothing wrong with acrylic" I realized... how dumb I sounded.

Acrylic yarns have their place, just like every other fiber, tool, and technique.

Here are a few acrylic projects I've done in the last two years.

For this first project, I layered 4 strands of acrylic super-saver yarn and used a size US-T hook to crochet a heavy chevron blanket. Weighted blankets have been trending as a method to reduce anxiety, and this one weighs in around 15lbs. A project of this size would be unrealistically expensive using anything other than acrylic.

This incredible rainbow of skeins, Bernat Bargello, made a small knitted lapghan. Nothing like the traditional acrylic, this yarn is stretchy, drapey, and soft. It was a dream to work with. The yarn is a bulky-weight knitted cord that provides a great deal of visual interest and would be impossible to replicate as a hand spinner.

Finally, this third project was made from some acrylic I picked up in Spain a few years ago on my honeymoon. Who doesn't go to a yarn store on their honeymoon? Again, it proved incredibly soft and lovely to work with. The colors and texture of the fiber makes it almost indistinguishable from wool.

Final Thoughts

While I am speaking in generalizations here, acrylic shaming, among other forms of shaming, is a real phenomena in the fiberarts world. It can come from within the artist and from outside pressures. There is a hierarchy built into the materials we use and it is borne from a need for artists to set themselves apart from the common craftspersons. Fiber arts skills are undervalued for many reasons, but part of the devaluation comes from the perception that anyone can knit or crochet. If a fiber artist can shame the materials or skills of another artist as being inferior, this somehow boosts his or her own prestige.

What this also does, however, is create a toxic community and further devalues fiber art over time. So, if you knit or crochet, I want you to go into your stash. What does it contain? How many skeins of Red Heart do you own? I have more than 20lbs of acrylic yarn in my personal stash, at this moment. Be proud of yourself for your skill set. You are at a point in your own journey as a fiber artist, which cannot be compared to any other person's journey. Use the yarn you want to use. Use the yarn that brings you joy. And flip off anyone who needs to tell you that you are less of an artist because you work with acrylics.

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All photos and text property of @luthvarian