Two Knitting-Related Questions -- Seeking Opinions

[gnomi]

1. Mostly for those who knit with natural fibers exclusively, but open to everyone: Do "regenerated" yarns such as those made of corn silk or soy or whatever qualify as "natural" in your mind? Why or why not?

2. If I have a pattern that was originally available free online but is no longer due to the designer removing it from his/her site, is it ethical of me to share my copy of that pattern? Why or why not?

Comments

[tober.livejournal.com]

With respect to "natural fibers", there are some fibers that occupy a middle ground between "synthetic" and "natural." The oldest (or at least oldest which is well known) of these is in fact rayon (which is made from wood or other plant matter) which is a cellulose-based polymer. Soy fiber is analogous, except it's made from amino acids from soy, not cellulose. I would consider fibers of this type to be more "natural" than e.g. Ingeo - which is made of polylactic acid, normally derived from corn or sugar cane but which could be made from (almost) anything you can ferment, and it's about as synthetic as anything synthetic (I say this because in order to make it you're breaking down the corn or other feedstock into an extremely simple substance and then using that to make a fiber). I think that it's really only fair to consider a fiber to be natural if you can make the fiber from its naturally occurring feedstock by use of only essentially mechanical means, not chemical ones. I don't think that natural fibers are inherently superior to synthetic ones (and indeed synthetic fibers have some advantages) but that is not what you asked.