Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Belastraw



Thanks to ebay I have finally gotten my hands on a few spools of the mythical Belastraw crochet yarn - er, thread, umm, "stuff " for lack of a better word. Belastraw was the material of choice for a lot of the purse patterns in the 1950's and I've been trying to get a handle on exactly what it was and what's available now that would make a good substitute.

On first sight I was tempted to dismiss it as junky funky plastic yarn. The sort of thing that gave crochet a bad rep back in the 70's. It's pretty thin and bears a definite resemblance to nylon rope. It feels a lot softer though and the little metallic strand running through it makes it kind of pretty. I also remembered that aluminum was a luxury metal when it was first invented and chainmail or mesh purses made of aluminum were much more expensive at the time than the steel ones. Belastraw was the up and coming, fashion forward, gotta have it fiber in its day. Remember, this was not long after WWII and everyone wanted modern. Now we appreciate the wonderfulness of 100% wool or cotton, back then it was old fashioned and synthetics were just way cooler.

The labels say Belastraw was distributed by John Dritz & Sons, and yes that Dritz. Dritz was eventually bought out by Prym and became the Prym-Dritz Corp we all know from the sewing notions. It also says that it's made from "viscose process rayon". Had to look that one up.

Turns out that rayon is made much the same as a spider spins its web. A liquid is extruded (shot out) of spinnerets and becomes filaments, which are then spun together to create the final strand or thread/yarn. Bottom line, it's still a form of synthetic, much like nylon. "Viscose" is not quite the same as "viscous". Viscose is "a thick golden brown viscous solution derived from cellulose and used in the manufacture of rayon and cellophane. Viscous means "having a relatively high resistance to flow", or in a sentence now; Molasses is more viscous than water. (Both definitions are from the American Heritage dictionary)

The photo shows the Belastraw at the bottom with some Red Heart Baby Sport above it. They're roughly the same size and the Red Heart is weight size 3 in the new standards. The label originally said there was 144 yards on the spool but it's been blacked out and 125 yards stamped instead. Judging from the vagrancies in the stamps for color, dye lot and yardage, it looks like some poor person actually stood there with an ink pad marking each spool. How's that for a boring job! At least it was a job, and that's something we all appreciate these days. I'm thinking that just about any 3 yarn will do for a substitute and any with a slight sheen will be better. The belastraw does have that faint plastic glow.





6 comments:

StacyG said...

Thank you so much for this info! I have been wracking my brains trying to figure out a substitute!

Ladydivine said...

thank you so much for posting this. i was searching and searching for what a good substitute would be. i have one question though. most of the hats in the pics are really stiff could this be because of the metal running through it or because of the texture of the yarn and will the baby weight yarn do the same

PatternsAlaCarte said...

The stiffness of the hat is due to a combinations of factors; Belastraw is a pretty firmly twisted thread aside from being a synthetic fiber,AND the thread/hook ratio has to be pretty tight (smaller hook than normally specified on the modern labels). You have to do a little fussing to find the right hook size - start with one size smaller and go from there.

amberfire said...

I wish they would just come out with belastraw again!!!

Andrea said...

Could you please tell me the art.no? I have a pattern for the yarn being art. no 110. I know there are other sizes. I am just wondering as I substituted a size 3 yarn (pattern indicated size 1 steel crochet hook) and I used a size 0. Seems like a nice pattern but not the right gauge.

PatternsAlaCarte said...

If you could tell me the year your pattern was published I could look at my vintage needle gauges and see what size a #1 steel crochet hook was back then. Sizes were different between manufacturers (still are) and have changed over the years. what pattern is it? I believe the "art no 110" is going to refer to the color of a specific yarn brand, not necessarily the size.