Hilltop Cloud
  • About
    • Dugoed
  • Shop
    • Fibre
    • Tools
    • Handspun Yarn
    • Spindle Kits
    • Hand Turned Tools
    • Bags and Needle Cases
  • Fibre Clubs
    • Time Travellers Club
    • Never Ending Gradient Club
  • Spinning Hand Dyed Fibre
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Workshops
  • Shows
  • Fibres
    • Bases
    • Gradient Packs
    • Tussah Silk
    • Ingredients Box
    • Silk Road
    • Ceilidh
    • Nordic
    • Fibre Care
    • Hiraeth
  • Resources
    • Videos
    • Garment Spinning
    • Flyers and Ratios
    • Skein Length
    • Plying Twist
    • Samples
  • About
    • Dugoed
  • Shop
    • Fibre
    • Tools
    • Handspun Yarn
    • Spindle Kits
    • Hand Turned Tools
    • Bags and Needle Cases
  • Fibre Clubs
    • Time Travellers Club
    • Never Ending Gradient Club
  • Spinning Hand Dyed Fibre
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Workshops
  • Shows
  • Fibres
    • Bases
    • Gradient Packs
    • Tussah Silk
    • Ingredients Box
    • Silk Road
    • Ceilidh
    • Nordic
    • Fibre Care
    • Hiraeth
  • Resources
    • Videos
    • Garment Spinning
    • Flyers and Ratios
    • Skein Length
    • Plying Twist
    • Samples

A Washing Experiment

15/10/2013

 
Firstly, I'll just say I love my customers, partly because they do things like this....



Southdown is meant to be a great wool to use for socks, all the down breeds resist felting, so in theory that also means you can machine wash your socks. Handy, if like me you do minimal laundry and tend to want to put everything in together.

You can buy machine washable wool, it's superwash treated, either by being chemically stripped of the scales that stick together during felting, or by being resin coated. Both require the use of chemicals, and  the resin treatment in particular doesn't seem to last forever. I have, eventually, felted socks that were meant to be superwash wool. That's not to say I'm anti superwash, I'm not particularly anti-chemicals in modern life, I particularly love the intense shades I can dye on superwash, the stuff sucks up dye like nothing else. However, a natural alternative that's also machine washable is a pretty cool tool to have at our disposal. 



Now like I said, Southdown is machine washable in theory, but I'd never personally put it to the test. Projects to do outweigh available time unfortunately.

Now I won't need to, as sockrat has done it for me.



She knitted 2 swatches in some of my hand dyed Southdown. The colourway was autumn hedges from last year's BoB club. Look closely and you'll notice that one has a little strand of red yarn knitted in to it, this was so she could tell the difference between the two swatches. 

Picture
Both swatches originally measured 5 inches wide by 3.75 inches tall.

The one with the red yarn was treated delicately, just a cold machine wash. The other one got some abuse, same cold machine wash, but then put straight in a hot dryer.

They had 4 washes/drys, and both swatches did change shape slightly. 



Here's the delicate treated one (cold machine wash only)
Picture
It's filled out slightly, developed a bit of a halo, but barely altered. It ended up measuring 5 inches wide, and 3.6 inches tall.



Here's the one that was put in a hot dryer while still wet.

Picture
It's definitely fuzzier, but it's not exactly a square of felt, it definitely still has identifiable stitches. Finished measurements were 4.5 inches high, and 3.5 inches wide, so slightly more shrinkage than the other swatch, but not by a great deal. 



I have to say, we don't really tumble dry anything, it either goes on the washing line outside, or is hung on the airer above the woodburner overnight. Sometimes it takes a combination of the 2, but our tumble dryer hasn't been switched on in a very long time. Having seen this I feel perfectly safe putting my Southdown socks in with all the rest of my washing on a low temperature setting. It seems to work just as well as superwash treated wool. If you do choose to use a tumble dryer I'd be inclined to avoid drying your Southdown socks in it, but if you do accidentally put a pair in with the rest of the washing it's not going to be the end of the world.



Of course, from a dyers perspective hand washing does make the colours last longer, they stay brighter for longer, but if you know you won't handwash your socks then Southdown is a really useful fibre to have in your spinning tool box.



As for how to spin it, Sarah Anderson did another experiment in her Spinners Book of Yarn Design. She spun up several different types of yarns and made them in to pairs of socks, and carried out wear tests. The book itself is well worth buying, Christmas is coming, why not put it on your list...

Traditionally the gold standard for socks is a 3-ply yarn. She compared chain or navajo plying to a regular 3-ply and debunked the myth that navajo plying makes a weaker yarn. So go ahead and navajo ply if you want.

She also experimented with opposing plys, which were better still than 3-ply, and cabled yarns which were also better, for that technique you need to be able to produce fine enough singles to make the right thickness of yarn with 4-plys though...


Comments are closed.

    Archives

    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    More
     BlogPosts

    Categories

    All
    Advent
    Bees
    Chickens
    Countryside
    Dogs
    FO's
    Rhinebeck
    Shop Talk
    Spinning
    Spinningwithapurpose
    SpoinnersAdvent
    Weaving

    RSS Feed

Hilltop Cloud

Hilltop Cloud- Spin Different 

Beautiful fibre you'll love to work with. 
Established 2011 

VAT Reg- 209 4066 19
Dugoed Bach, Mallwyd, Machynlleth,
​ Powys, SY20 9HR
© COPYRIGHT 2015. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
✕