I haven’t been wearing jeans lately, but I’m loving knitting up my dad’s sweater with denim yarn, even though it’s been turning my fingers blue. If you haven’t used denim before, it shrinks 10-15% in the first wash, and then fades beautiful as you wear and love it. I love the transformation, as seen in the picture below of one washed and one unwashed sleeve (no, that’s not some trick of the light or camera).
While the deep indigo colour is beautiful to begin with, I think it takes on a much more interesting character when it’s washed. What you can’t see in the picture is that the fabric, which originally was quite loosely knit, also firms up beautifully in the shrinking process. Cotton often gets a bad wrap in the knitting community because it can be inflexible and hard to knit with, but I haven’t had a problem with the denim. At the end of the day, I think the results are worth the list discomfort anyway.
On a side note, the Elann yarn I’m using recommends a hot wash then round in a hot dryer. We don’t have a dryer, the hot water tap on our washing machine is broken, and I’m much too lazy to go to the laundromat. Instead, I improvised, and soaked the finished pieces in the hottest tap water I could get before chucking them in a cold wash. The yarn bled like crazy in the hot water, and the pieces shrunk up as expected.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I think the worn, comfy feel of the washed denim is going to compliment the Beau pattern BEAUTIFULLY. Well matched!
The transformation is amazing with just the one wash! I always love the feel of a freshly laundered pair of jeans you know, when you have to do a couple sit ups to get the fabric to loosen up and then they fit perfect – it’s going to be the same with this sweater. Love how it’s shaping up and your increases are invisible, how do you do that!!!