The word “trapping” may not sound as exotic as our previous words of the week–mercerized and viscose–but what does it mean when applied to knitting? 

I found myself wondering this when one of our regular customers was in the shop talking about trapping. The lack of pelts around her belt and her clean hands suggested to me she wasn’t wandering around creation checking for her latest prey.

Trapping in knitting refers to a technique used in fair isle knitting to carry the color of yarn not currently in use along the back of the work. For those of you who may not be familiar with fair isle, it looks like this:

Let’s call color A the color you want to have showing; we’ll call color B the color that is not in use. The idea with trapping is that color B gets tacked in the back of the stitch worked in color A. Trapping is important, especially over several stitches of A, because it helps color B maintain its tension.  If you didn’t trap color B, it could get pulled too tight, causing the knitting to pucker, or it might become too loose, causing the knitting to have holes and gaps.

If you want to learn how to trap, try clicking here for Knitting Daily’s tutorial on trapping.

Not into fair isle knitting?  That’s okay!  Trapping is a useful technique for any knitter to have in her bag of tricks–if you hate to weave in ends, trap them instead as you go along. Knitting Daily’s tutorial explains how in the section marked “Here’s an extra special tip for you.”

Let’s face it–using the word “trapping” may not have the same conversation-stopping effect as when you drop “mercerized” or “viscose,” (“Mercerized? Oh, you must really be a fiber artist…”), but you won’t have to go far to weave it into your vocabulary.  Or to weave your ends, for that matter.

Earlier this week, I found myself asking my coworker Andrea whether viscose is a synthetic material. I had seen it on several yarn labels, usually blended with other fibers like cotton or wool.

No, Andrea said. It comes from a plant. 

Andrea was right, but I understood why I might have guessed synthetic: viscose comes from processing wood pulp into cellulose that can then be made into a spinnable fiber. So, while the base is natural (wood), it is heavily processed.

We can hardly talk about viscose without talking about rayon. Rayon is an aritificial silk. Since real silk comes from silkworms, it is not easy to gather in large amounts and therefore costly. So, for centuries the search was on to figure out a way to create something like silk that wasn’t actually from worms.

Enter the viscose process.  The breaking down of wood pulp into a liquid and re-coagulating it into fiber creates rayon, or artificial silk. Because the viscose process makes rayon, you will sometimes see labels that say “viscose rayon,” or just “viscose” for short.

Okay, so that’s the technical answer of what viscose is.  But how does it affect the yarn that’s made with it?

Silk is known for its lovely drape; likewise, viscose lends beautiful drape to items made from it.  Also like silk, viscose has a sheen that gives yarn a lustrous finish. Take, for example, Debbie Bliss Prima. The label reads 80% Viscose (Bamboo), which of course means the wood pulp used in this particular viscose comes from bamboo. The viscose gives Prima its lovely sheen and a cool, comfortable feel. The other 20% in Prima is Merino Wool, which adds a touch of elasticity that viscose, like other plant-based fiber, lacks. The blend allows the best of both worlds.

Viscose may not be the prettiest word in our knitting vocabulary with its sticky sound. But if you stop by and pet our stock of Debbie Bliss Prima–or look at it on our website–you’ll find the end product is far more sleek and beautiful than its viscous name.