Dear Anne
I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself for forgetting one vital thing when knitting for charity. I work as a volunteer in a soup kitchen and at this time of year, there’s many of us on duty to help, so I decided to knit some old-fashioned but useful pot holders for picking up warm items. As oven gloves were in short supply, one of the cooks used two of my pot holders to lift a large metal pan from the stove. I’d headed for my stash and not taken sufficient care. I’d knitted most of them in wool, but some man-made yarn had crept into the mix. The man-made yarn immediately melted onto the pan. Her quick thinking and actions meant she only suffered slight burns to her hands, but I was absolutely terrified. Please, please print this warning to others. Only use pure wool for pot holders or anything going to war zones, where there will be fire and intense heat. I’ll give you my name, but would you kindly not print it and thank you for spreading the word.
These days, we can find lots of details on line for burn tests for different fibres. In a nutshell, animal fibres such as wool don’t ignite easily, smell like burning hair and leave ash we can crush easily. Man-made fibres melt, smell acrid and form hard plastic beads. Cotton burns quickly, smells like burnt paper or wood and leaves fine, light ash.
