What is fiber pilling? How can we deal with it?
Tuesday, October 12th, 2010This is a question that we often hear. It is very difficult when you have put so much of yourself into knitting that gorgeous sweater and after one normal wearing it is covered in little bumps! What are these? How did they get there? WHY!?
Well lets talk about it. It isn’t that bad.
Pilling is when the yarn kind of pills up into a little nub on the object you have just knit. Man-made fibers are more likely to have pilling occur, fibers such as acrylic, nylon or polyester. Abrasion or rubbing will cause the wear and cleaning the fibers cause the yarn to unravel and the loose ends are what ball up causing the little pills. Fibers such as cotton, linen, or wool which are natural fibers may pill but they will be removed during washing.
I have written an article detailing Pilling and how to avoid it. Have a look.
Pilling is a Fact of Yarn and Fiber – But Can Anything Be Done About It?
This is what pilling looks like up close.
Sweater Pilling Up Close
This video shows great information about the different types of yarn and how they knit up. It also shows you about natural fibers and how they get turned into yarn. From Knitting Daily
Here is the Sweater Stone that will help solve the problem of pilling. I talk about this in my article. You can get this at Amazon for barely anything. The current prices are on the site. Just click the picture.
Sweater Stone
An Excellent tool for removing pilling from sweaters and other garmets. Just run the little comb in one direction across the fiber and the little pills just sweep away. Again an Amazon product which is very inexpensive. Check the site for latest prices.
d-fuzz-it comb
