Wow!! That looks great! You're almost there.

I've heard that you can burn a small section of the yarn; if it melts it's acrylic, if it ignites, it's wool. No idea what would happen with a blend, though. :)
Good luck with all those ends.

Nice sweater. There is a test--put a match to a strand. If it melts then there's some acrylic in it. If it just burns away like hair, then it's animal fibre.

I'm not sure what cotton does--but you could burn some of that from your stash and see what happens ;)

Sheesh I sound like a pyro. But it does work.

Or, you could put a strand in a jar of bleach. Wool will dissolve in a few days, but acrylic will last forever.

You could also find an allergic friend and put it up to their face. I can tell in under 10 seconds if there's more than a teeny amount of wool in it.

The matches might be more convenient. xoxo Kay

It looks great, you did an amazing job on the sleeve. Love the CSI comment, you're too much :)

Looks great and springy! Hope it passes the softness test!

I've done the burn test on some mystery yarn. It really melted like plastic and was pretty obvious.

Burning wool smells like hair burning (logical, if you think about it.) :-) Burning cotton is more like paper. Acrylic melts.
The sweater looks great, btw.

I vote for the smell test -- after you've washed it, if it smells like wet wool, well, it has wool in it. If not, who knows?

Looks great! I would so not have been able to match up the stripes. I vote for the burn test - it's fun. If you google it, there's a lot more info about how to tell a blend from 100% wool, etc.

Definitely take some matches and yarn out onto the sidewalk... or other place where you won't set your house on fire. :)

Thanks for that peak! The sweater looks great. Isn't there a bleach test that you can do with a scrap? One will disintegrate in bleach (wool?). One won't.

Peek not peak.

That's looking great! Those colors will look so good on you!

You always miss my contests, so I wanted to tell you that I'm running another one this weekend.

Didn't I see on someone's blog where they tested for fibre content with bleach? If the yarn is wool, it will disintegrate in bleach. You have to leave it for a while, but it is somewhat less scarey than lighting yarn on fire!

there is something to be said about the bleach test too, especially if its a blend (say wool acrylic) the wool will eat away and what will be left is the acrylic. I've done this test on fabric. Actually have done both tests (match and bleach) on fabrics to get an idea of fiber content.
Good luck and in any case, its looking good :)

Very, very, very cute. Oh wait forgot a very. I love how the colors have come together once it's being sewn up.

Fantastic how well your stripes match up! It's perfect. :)

That's SO cute.

another way to tell (though less scientific then the match/bleach way) is to attempt to dye it. A drop or two of food coloring (or kool-aid or other artificially colored liquid) will be absorbed by a natural fiber, and acrylic will *look* like it's going to take it, but it'll wash out as soon as you put it under/in a cup of water. I've used this technique when taking apart secondhand store homemade sweaters (that no one will ever actually wear because they're so, ah, creatively put together) and I like it better then the burning.

I put a snip of the yarn in a jar and cover it with regular household bleach and then put the jar in a cabinet over the stove while I'm waiting on the results. I've seen wool dissolve in under 15 minutes but sometimes it takes longer. If it looks totally unchanged overnight then it's acrylic. If it bubbles/fizzes when it's first covered with bleach but doesn't disintigrate completely then it's a wool/acrylic blend.

Terrific job on matching your sleeve!

Well the easiest way to find out what the fiber identification of an unknown fiber is to do a burn test. Please, Please burn in a metal bucket and have plenty of water when you try this. I use to do this in a lab, in a white suit, with prinklers, and chemical hoods. I have watched fibers torch and produce incredible flames in seconds. So I just dug up my cheat sheet notes from fiber lab. There are essentially 39 test to run on the fiber to find its true identity, but this is the quickest and easiest.

Please Be Careful :)

Burning Test plant and man made

Plant

Cotton: Steady Flame, smells like burning leaves, ash crumbles, will blow out like a candle

Linen: Take a long time to ignite, ash is brittle, will blow out like a candle

Silk: Burn but not easily and no steady flame, smells like hair, ash crumble, can not be blown out easily

Wool: Steady flame, difficult to burn, smells like hair

Man Made Fibers

Acetate: burns easily, flickering flame, not easy to be blow out, burning cellulose drips and leaves hard ash, smells like burning wood chips

Acrylic: Acrylonitrile made of gas and etroleum, Burn fast and lofty fibers have air pockets that burn instantly, Ash is hard, smells acrid

Nylon: Polyamide made from petroleum, Doesn't burn but melts rapidly, it there is a flame it is floating on the melted fibers, smells like burning plastic

Polyester: petroleum product, coal, air, and water, melts and burns at the same time, melted ash bonds with the surface of the item it was held by, smoke is black and sweet smelling, hard to blow out

Rayon: Cellulose, burns fast and leaves only a little bit of ash, smells like burning leaves

Wow, Alison. Nice nice plain white bread work.

Happy Mothers Day to you too,
kathy b irisheyes

I've done the bleach test, as well. It really doesn't take very long (less than an hour).

Ok. I was out of the town the last few days and missed some posts... But I have to say, love everything! This SS sweater is incredible. It looks insanely professional the colors came out great. The denim yarn from below is looking good for that denim pinafore. So cute. Happy knitting!

You did it! You were able to match the sleeves to the body despite making stripe adjustments w/the sweater. What's the final verdict w/fiber content?

Looks so cute! Love the stripes!