Acrylicky goodnesses???

in my quest to find a pattern.... which led to a search of the differences between ARAN and WORSTED weight yarns.... and ultimately left me pondering ~ how on earth is ACRYLIC yarn made? ~ Yes, sometimes I have these moments... I discovered that it is basically a concoction of melted chemical drippage.....hmmm like icicles? ... go melt down your barbies, and strain the plastic through some kind of colander... and wooo lah? acrylic that can be plied? ok -- not quite! -- this site explains it much better: http://www.woolcrafting.com/acrylic.html Quite interesting! Check it out! That is, if you really want to know!

Why search the differences between aran and worsted weight yarns? Simple. I was contemplating making Mr. Greenjeans! I noticed it called for an aran weight and I am not all that familiar with the different weights of yarns! If you look at this chart: http://www.yarnstandards.com/weight.html both fall under the same classification/category.. a (4) etc... Therefore I often wondered if one could be substituted for the other? right? Quite accidentally, I stumbled upon Ripley... a real cool nautical sweater pattern from knitty.com:
http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEsummer05/PATTripley.html .... but that was me getting sidetracked. Ultimately I believe the information I found at: http://www.knittersreview.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=55044 to be true. At least, I hope it is valid information. There is a difference in weight between the two -aran and worsted. Perhaps they are not 100% interchangeable in patterns. This knitting is a whole new world to me. Each day I learn of something new! Yes, a work in progess!