Superwash wool is meant to be more “convenient”: easily washable, and even, some claim, easily driable ! We all know this only partly true. We’ve seen what happens to our knits that we mistakenly put on an ordinary washing cycle. They don’t turn out good. It never occurred to me to put the poor wrench in a drier, but my guess is it would only make matters worse if your drier doesn’t have a special cool cycle for delicates. But I was wondering : can I create felt out of my merino superwash wool ? Wouldn’t it be lovely if I could create Xmas decorations out of felt using some of my stash of superwash merino wool ?
So I devised a very simple experiment. I knitted two swatches using the same wool, (Lang Merino Fine Superwash 120). The gauge indication is 22 stiches X 32 rows, so it’s a weight number 3. Pricewise, it’s a mid-range brand, widely available where I live. The recommended needle size is 3.5/4.5 mm. So I knitted one swatch on needle size 4mm and another swatch on needle size 3.25. I am neither a tight or a loose knitter. I knitted the second swatch at a tighter gauge because I know (but unfortunately don’t remember from where) that people historically knitted at a tighter gauge than what we are used to nowadays. And I was willing to test what I thought might be the reason : a better resistance to felting. (The 3.25 mmneedle size being just one dowm than the lowest recommended one, the knit still looked good). Once done, I pinned down my two stockinette swatches that were curling like mad, measured them…and then put them with my other clothes on a 60°C (140°F) washing cycle for a full hour. I normally wash all my clothes at 40°C (104°F) for 30 min, but I doubted I could create felt this way. My laundry load was not full and it didn’t have towels. I’ve been told towels are great to produce felt. I use my usual laundry product, aka not a special wool or special delicates one.
The result was very disappointing for me : no felt at all had been created ! Both swatches have suffered from this harsh treatment. The swatch knitted at the normal gauge has grown both sidewise and lengthwise, from 16 to 18 cm sidewise (+ 12,5%) and from 33 to 35.5 cm lengthwise (+7.5 %). On the other hand, the swatch knitted at the tighter gauge has kept its shape.
This blog is on a budget and unfortunately my camera produces very poor-quality pictures. There’s no way I can show you how these swatches look. So please trust me when I tell you this : both swatches have a weary look, the ones that says “I’ve been through a lot!”. But the one knitted at the tighter gauge is faring far better. Yes. there is a little fuziness in it, but it’s bearly noticable. The one knitted at the normal gauge is fuzzier and you can also notice that it has begun to pill. Pilling is the formation of small, fuzzy balls on the surface of a fabric, often caused by friction or abrasion during wear. So not only does this second swatch looks weary, its very surface structure bears the scars!
To the touch, this second swatch feels like it has lost its strength and that it’s ready to stretch even further. Can a knit feel breakable to the touch ? I’m a bit lost for words here, but that’s how it seems to me : weak and easily breakable. The first swatch isn’t as worn out. To the touch, it stays pretty similar to its former self.
As far as the colours are concerned, the first swatch is knitted in red and dark green. The red has kept its colour perfectly. It is still a lovely shiny red and it is still evenly coloured.. The dark green colour however, isn’t as shiny as before and the little fuzziness makes it appear less dark than it used to be. The colour isn’t completely even either. The second swatch I knitted all in green bottle. The colour is not even and is lighter than the one in the first swatch. I don’t know if this is caused by the fuzziness or by the fact that it shed more of its colour during the washing cycle. But the end result is that if you compare the two swatches, you could come to the conclusion that it was knitting with a different die lot. Yet this is not the case. I was using my stash and all I knitted in this green bottle colour came from the one and same skein.
The superwash treatment’s purpose is to avoid felt shrinkage. Yarn manufacturers are in no obligation of telling us which wool treatment they used. As the wool I used is not GOTS-certified, I’m pretty sure the superwash used By Lang was the pre-chlorination/Hercosett process, as this is the most widely-used superwash wool treatment. As my little experiment has shown, the Hercosett process is effective at preventing felt shrinkage. If not impossible (according to what some crafters have managed to do, aka successfully fulling some superwash wool) – it’s still a challenge when you are trying to full a knit that is 100% superwash. I might have been more successful if I had put the swatches in a hot dryer instead of letting them dry naturally, if my machine load had been full (it was only about 2/3 full), the wash cycle hotter, etc. What my little experiment has also shown is that the superwash treatment doesn’t prevent knits from growing and no, superwash definitely doesn’t mean, let’s wash my knits with my pair of jeans!
Conclusions :
- Knitting at a tighter gauge makes it much easier for a garment to maintain its shape.
- Knitting at a tighter gauge makes it much easier for a garment not to pill.
- There is a possibility that knitting at a tighter gauge makes it easier for a garment to keep its dye.
- Don’t wash your knits at 60°C for a full hour on a normal washing cycle (;-))!
Reference (on the Hercosett process, on its abality to prevent felt shrinage and how widely used it is, not the conclusions I draw from my little experiment) :
Side note : I am currently working on part III of Knitting Advice Nr. 11: ” Don’t buy superwash wool“. If all goes well, I will be able to publish it next Sunday. It will focus on the environmental impact of chlorination, the first step of the Hercosett process.
Unsolicited Knitting Advice 