Hi, I was emailing with someone (who may be on this list?) about her experiences with superwash sock yarn fulling after ~10 cycles of wear. She said the yarn was handpainted (thereby steamed for some unmeasured period - in my experience, dyes need 30-40 min. in steam to set), knit into socks, and worn/washed about 10 times before they fulled. The socks were machine washed in warm water, but they were not machine dried.
Although I don't know where I read it, I seem to remember that there are 2 processes to make superwash yarn. One is to coat the fibers with some kind of resin to lock down the scales. Another is some chemical way to strip scales from the fibers. I don't know how either process is achieved or which companies use what techniques. It makes sense to me that, in my friend's case, a coating is eventually wearing off. As an inexperienced knitter, I once tried to full a swatch made of superwash. (Didn't read the label - d'oh!) I can tell you that after 3-4 trips through a machine wash of hot water, detergent, agitation, it remained stubbornly unfulled, but the swatch may have gotten marginally smaller. I would appreciate any info on how superwash fibers are made. I would also like to hear of anyone else's experience with superwash yarns suddenly being not-superwash anymore. (Yarn brands would also be helpful.) Thanks in advance, June -- Twosheep Blog: http://www.twosheep.com/blog Twosheep Handspun Yarn: http://www.twosheep.com/yarn To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
