Cotton and linen yarn

Linen, cotton, viscose and their blends. They do not hold heat, they breathe and they stay cool against the skin, unlike wool. Linen Bloom is pure linen, Nepal combines organic cotton with linen, and Line adds viscose for a smoother drape. Sunny Linen also brings in a little alpaca and merino, for pieces worn on cool evenings.

In the ball, yes, and that puts a lot of people off. Linen softens with every wash and every wearing, though, and after a few cycles it turns silky. Few fibres look better after a year than on the day you finished the piece, and linen is one of them.

Yes, more than wool. Cotton and linen do not have the elasticity of wool, so a loosely knitted garment can grow over time under its own weight. Two things help: knit at a slightly tighter gauge than you would with wool, and choose patterns designed for plant fibres. Blends with viscose or a little wool, like Puno Fine, hold their shape better than pure cotton.

Every yarn page lists the recommended needles, but treat them as a starting point. Plant fibres are less forgiving of the wrong gauge than wool, because they cannot be blocked into shape, so the swatch matters more here than on a winter sweater. Measure it after you have washed and dried it, not straight off the needles.

More simply than wool. Both take a machine wash at low temperatures on a delicate cycle. Dry them flat as well, because they are heavy when wet and can stretch on a hanger. Linen presses easily, but its creases are part of the charm of the fibre. Check the ball band too.

It depends on the pattern, the size and the yarn. Run it through the yarn calculator: you pick the pattern and the yarn, and it tells you how many balls you need in your size. If you want to compare with winter fibres, here are all our knitting yarns.