Five Wise Owls Fingering

Collaborations and networking are such an integral part of discovering new-to-me and, hopefully, new-to-you eco dyers.  My teacher, Jill Wolcott, first introduced Five Wise Owls to me last summer as she knew I was always on the lookout for eco options. Five Wise Owls features animal-fiber free eco yarns in her Etsy shop.  Juliah, dyer extraordinary from Five Wise Owls, kindly sent me a skein for this review.  I loved it so much, it ended up being featured in this year’s Pattern Club!  Formerly known as “Worth”, Juliah’s organic cotton fingering is now known as Five Wise Owl’s Fingering.  Let’s look more closely at this fingering weight organic cotton yarn from one superb indie eco dyer from Texas.

Gauge Summary:
Less than a 10% changed between washed and unwashed for US 1-5 in Garter and US 1-3 in St St.  The needle size with the highest change rate was US 4 St St, coming in at 23% change.  Given the stability at US 5 in St St, I conclude a potential over blocking on US 4 and remain open-minded to future swatch evidence 😉. 

Stitches:

Swatched in St St, Garter, Rib, and Twisted Rib.  Textured stitches, lace, brioche, and cables were also swatched for design specific purposes.

This yarn base handled all beautifully!  I especially loved the look of traveling cables over a purl background and the highly textured lace on rather large needles (US 13). 

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Colors:
Featuring highly variegated colorways, such as “Watermelon Patch”, as well as tonal offerings, like “Logan”, Juliah offers a mix of frequently seen colorways as well as those offered on a limited time only basis.  In addition to the variegated and tonal, I’ve seen speckled show up on IG also.

Pros:
Top notch customer care – considerate to the scent needs mentioned as well as very knowledgeable about her fiber offerings. She has a really cute packaging concept, too. My order came with an upcycle yarn stitch marker!
Beautiful color range – Juliah has a creative eye for color and a great sense of theme.
Durable – this is a workhorse yarn.  Reacted well to frogging and handling.  Required scissors to break, despite the attempts when I couldn’t find any.  The fibers become a little stiff when dried flat, but softens with dryer drying.

Cons:
Missing information on the ball band – particularly, fiber content
Potential con – the “Watermelon Patch” / “Holiday Cheer” colorway, some undersaturated areas.  Viewing her on-line shop for other color samples, this under saturation isn’t widely seen so I’m inclined to think it was intentional.

Eco Value:

From the dyer: I try to recycle and reuse and much as I can when making products. Recycling is important to me in my personal life and I extend that to dying. Things like packaging, paper, really anything I can get away with. Not only is it economical, which helps keep costs down, but also keeps my waste to a minimum. Also I have extremely sensitive skin so I try to avoid any unnecessary perfumes or soaps that would irritate the skin. I don’t use any machines to assist in dying. My yarns hang dry, I rinse by hand, and do what I can to keep my environmental impact to a minimum.

I realized I was in the realm of an eco-indie when I asked particularly about the fiber.  Her response, “the fiber content is 100% organic cotton. But it is a blend, so I can’t say what kind of cotton.”  Yes, there are varieties of cottons!  Not many people talk that deeply about yarn, showing Juliah’s penchant for knowing as much as possible about the fibers she works with and introduces to the eco knitting world.

Overall Rating:

9.5 out of 10 – ½ a point off for missing pertinent information on the ball band.