Care Instructions
A little extra care will ensure you prolong the life of your projects. Our yarns are mostly machine-washable* on a cool, delicate cycle, however hand-washing in cold water with a small amount of wool wash is highly recommended. Lay flat to dry, never use a dryer. Washing your gauge swatch is advised, especially if using contrasted, dark, or saturated colors.
* excluding the Bonmoher and Lanalpaca lines
Bleeding
If you are experiencing bleeding/rubbing off/staining issues:
Some colors – especially reds, indigo blues, and deep saturated tones – may retain residual dye stuff after the dyeing process. Though our yarns are fixed to stabilize the pigments, some batches may experience color bleeding due to excess dye. With hand-dyed yarns, it’s generally not considered a fault, as long as it can be solved by a wash either before you wind it up, or after your project’s finished. If you notice your hands are getting stained while knitting or crocheting, it also may be the pH of your skin pulling the excess dye molecules out. Climate, water quality, and detergents may also affect dye stability, so we suggest using only gentle soaps made for such fibers.
We highly recommend testing yarns before starting a project. The amount of dye that rubs off is usually minimal, but we understand concern about it potentially rubbing off onto your clothes or upholstery. There are a few ways to solve this depending on how far along in the project you are. Once a dye has stained other lighter colours used, it’s usually difficult to reverse.
- To test prior to winding your skein, cut a short length of yarn, take a white paper towel, dampen it slightly with room temperature water, and leave the yarn on the towel to dry to see if any color comes off. You can also try rubbing a dampened cotton cloth against the yarn, not paper though, as it may shred.
If there is evidence of bleeding, it’s easiest to keep the yarn tied in the hank, and rinse the skein under room temperature water. Do not twist or wring the yarn, as that will cause tangling or even felting due to the tiny hook shaped wool fibers. Make sure the water is completely clear before hanging the skein to dry.
- If you notice the rub off while winding it up and some of the yarn’s still in the skein, re-skein it, loosely secure it with a few figure eight ties and soak it in a bath of room temperature water (you may add some gentle wool soap if you wish). Leave it in the bath for about 30 minutes or until the water cools, and rinse with room temperature water until the water runs clear. Let it dry thoroughly.
- If you have already started knitting and don’t want to unravel your project, thread a lifeline through your live stitches and secure it with a knot. Wind the rest of your yarn back into a hank and loosely secure with a few figure eight ties. Continue by soaking and rinsing it as described in the first option.
If you are having trouble winding…
Most of our yarn comes in hank form since it’s more suitable for transport and storage. They can get a bit twisted, or ’tangled’-looking in the process for several reasons, the main one being wool fibres are structured in tiny hooks, so it’s their nature to easily get caught on each other when handled. Another contributing factor might be a small residual amount of fine dyestuff particles, especially with naturally-dyed Harvest line.
A few practical tips to make the winding easier:
When you untwist the hank of yarn, before cutting the ends knotted together, gently shake the hank to loosen the strands, then lay it on a flat surface, making sure all the strands are straight, not twisting.
Carefully cut the knotted ends apart without cutting the working yarn strands and remove the contrasting pieces holding the hank together.
If you have a yarn swift, place the hank around it and adjust it so that the tension of the yarn is taut. Otherwise, two dining room chairs placed back-to-back work just as well, with the yarn tight enough that you can realign any strands as needed.
Choose the end closest to the outside of the hank and wind it around your fingers loosely, slowly winding then removing your fingers so that the ball is not too tight. This can be a great upper body workout, but the trick is to not let the hank slack up enough to tangle. Sometimes it’s best to work both ends, and toward the middle of the hank, it will become much faster to wind.
Our yarns are dyed in small batches, so there likely will be some dye lot variance. We will not be able to track dye lots for your customers
