Monday, April 16, 2007

Sometimes It's The Labels

Methodology:

No Sheep Amy recommends measuring your geeky things before you do anything to them. I am lazy. Also, my swatches are rarely even enough to measure using something as simple and straightforward as length and width. My swatches are very complex, irregular, not-quite polygons (by definition, don't polygons need straight lines?), so measuring them would involve some very high order math, indeed. I traced them instead, labeled the tracings, then sent them off to The Laundry (cue dark and sinister music).

Results:

Interesting. Also unexpected. These are the post-laundry-traumatised swatches laid on the tracings of the original non-abused swatches.

Maggi's Rag (cotton acrylic polyamide blend, no care information on label).

Cascade Pima Tencel (cotton tencel blend, label specifies hand wash, dry flat).

And the biggest shocker of them all: Lion Brand Cotton Ease (cotton polyester blend, label specifies machine wash and dry).

There was a fourth swatch, but it has apparently found it's way to single sock land. This is "Oh My!" by Plymouth.

All things considered, I don't think I care, although this would be great yarn if I wanted something to look felted without having to super-size the pattern or actually do any felting.

And here I thought it was only swatches that lied.

2 comments:

Deb said...

Hi- I designed the Sweet Indulgence robe- and actually, I had designed it with a less expensive yarn (that's what happens when they want a real impact garment!) Anyhow- the Cascade Pima Tencel(doubled, I think) was actually one of my choices (the robe initially had a cotton blend pair of shorts to go with it- but we couldn't get a good colour match) Let me know what you finally decide!

Ang said...

a very interesting experiment indeed, glad to know it's not always my fault when things go wrong!