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A person can live a long time, and knit a long time, and not know something really useful.

I do know a lot about the care of handknit sweaters, and have strong opinions on the subject. But I learned something new the other day!

My Sweater Care Credo, in review.

Wool sweaters do not need dry cleaning: they like to be hand washed and air dried.

Wool sweaters do not need frequent washing. Once a season is plenty for me, except in the case of spaghetti sauce, and even then I try spot cleaning first.

Steam is the best and fastest fresher-upper for a handknit. Steam is not just for wrinkles! It smooths and plumps the stitches and even cleans the fibers, ridding them of sweaty scents. Blasts from a good steam iron will do fine, but if you splash out for a standing steamer like a Jiffy, it will pay for itself very quickly because you just don’t send anything to the dry cleaner once you have a steamer. Think of the savings on plastic, paper, and wire hangers!

The Epiphany

This winter, with some fierce cold days in the Northeast, my cherished Highland Bling pullover has seen constant wear. It’s knit in John Arbon Textiles Knit by Numbers, a supersoft, toasty blend of Bluefaced Leicester and merino. Very soft yarns naturally pill a bit with wear, and the front and sleeves of the ol’ Bling were dappled with fuzzy blobbettes.

I couldn’t find my trusty Lilly Brush (it’s here but where?) so I got out an electric sweater shaver that was given to me as a present, and went to work.

Foreshadowing: I also grabbed a standard stickytape lint-roller, to go over the sweater after de-pilling for stray strands of Olive’s or my hair.

And then, a thought occurred: why not use the lint roller first, to see if it removes some of the pills before even turning on the sweater shaver?

I tried it, and wow!  Not only did the sticky tape pick up a bunch of loose pills, it raised ALL of the pills from the nooks and crannies up to the surface. This meant that I could be very gentle with the sweater shaver. I barely had to press on it to pick up all the pills, quickly.

Tale of two sleeves. Left: before de-pilling. Right: after de-pilling.

I will never de-pill again without first doing a thorough pass with the sticky lint roller.

If you didn’t know this tip, you’re welcome! If you did know it, when were you going to share this golden tidbit of news we can use? In any case, I’m very glad to know it now, and share it.

50 Comments

  • I have the Lilly brush and love it! What a great tip about using the lint roller first! It’s a shame the Highland Bling pattern is discontinued, though. That is a very pretty sweater.

  • Kay, you’re a genius! I can hardly wait to try this – it should work great before using my good old Lilly Brush on sweaters, hats and on my zillion knitted afghans too. I have two cats and a large black lab, so I have plenty of those sticky rollers. Little tips like this add up to a knitting life of ease – many thanks.

  • Where, oh where, can I get the Highland Bling pattern? That is a sweater I need to have in my life.

  • Genius! Thank you for sharing this tip! Who knew? So many uses for sticky rollers. I’ve got my trusty Lilly brush but my daughter raves about her sweater shaver which I may need to try.

    Can I share a hand knit care tip? I do not love the towel squishing business after soaking hand knits. I’m always at least two towels short. So, one time I took a chance and put my soggy sweater in a lingerie bag and put it in the spin cycle of my washer. I haven’t looked back. Cross my heart, I’ve had sweaters that are dry the next day. When I share that tip in person, I’m sad to learn that not everyone has the standalone spin cycle. It has been a game changer in hand knit cleaning.

    My daughter found a GREAT cardigan at a vintage shop recently. It took four soaking sessions to get it clean. There are absolutely not enough towels in the house for dealing with that, but the spin cycle allowed her to wear the sweater the next day. I will add a word of caution because maybe not every precious hand knit can withstand this treatment….but I’ve never had a sad incident.

    • I do a low tech, less aggressive version of this — the salad spinner! It’s not big enough for the biggest knits, but it can hold more than you’d think.

    • Please be aware that spinning a knit garment in the washing machine, even on low, can cause the garment to felt. Since this happened to a brand new, fresh-off-the-needles cardigan I knit, I will never spin in the washer again!

      • Has anyone tried soaking in half- whole milk, half water? Someone told me it helps to make the fibers less grippy so it can be re-blocked to size. I have never tried it – seems like a waste of good milk – but I am curious.

      • I’ve felted more knitted items than I care to admit washing and spinning my hand knits this way. 2 different front loaders, and both felted sweaters, hats, shawls, cowls. Yep, I was being lazy and in denial that this could felt the wool. Because there shouldn’t be much agitation if the clothes stay on the drums due to the centrifugal force, right? Now I try to convince myself that the stiffer fabric and shrunken fit don’t bother me.

    • I do this too. It’s absolutely the best way to wash sweaters and block them too!

    • I have a drain and spin cycle that I’ve used for all my knits, except maybe my qiviut, I don’t remember. I adjust the spin spread to the second lowest and 13 minutes later they come out just barely damp. I, too, can wear them the next day.

    • I go a step further on this technique. I just fill up the washer with enough water to give the sweater a good soak, add some wool wash, and just let it sit there. When the time comes, I drain it and then spin it and it comes out like a dream. I use a salad spinner for little things like socks and hats. And learned it from a good friend who was a fiber engineer for Consumer Reports.

      • This is what I do too! I can wash a batch of sweaters at a time and they dry super fast afterwards.

      • I’ve been washing woolies the same way since someone on Ravelry convinced me I could soak and spin (with no agitation or letting water run in) without the Knitting Police kicking my front door in. It works very well, so much so that I’ve been including a standing offer to the recipients of my prayer shawls for a lifetime’s washing. It’s just so easy.
        My washer is a 20+ year old top loader, so I can cut off the fill, then add the wool wash and woolies.

  • Great idea! Thank you.

  • Genius! Thanks Kay!

  • That’s a beautiful sweater- pills or no pills.

  • “It’s here, but where?” resonates so much with me, and not just in relation to knitting tools. But yes, with them too.

  • Eureka moment here. Thanks for sharing.

  • Why I have loved the Lily brush for a long long time and will continue to love it, I have recently started using Cocoknits fuzz off and I really like how this works. It’s gentle and gets to it. Can’t wait to do it after using the lint roller brush. Thanks for the wonderful tip

    • Great tip but let’s talk about that sweater! It is just FABULOUS and I’d like you to wear it if I ever return to NYC in the winter again and we get together !

  • Great tip! Never thought to do this.

  • Thanks for sharing this! Can’t wait to try it!

  • What sweater shaver do you use? I had a small one years ago & it always wore out (got too dull) about halfway through a sweater. I imagine there have been improvements in their design since then & would like to try again. Your shop used to carry shavers but I haven’t seen them there for quite a while. Can you recommend a brand or brands?
    Thanks so much!

    • I’m guessing your shaver did not get dull, but rather that it filled up with fuzz and needed emptying. When it is full it drags on the motor and reduces power. I doubt sweater fuzz would dull metal blades with one sweater. Hope that makes sense! (by all means, don’t check the sharpness of the blades with the batteries in! )

    • I second Dorothy’s question. My shaver (if I could even find it) is also small and poky. I could welcome a new-and-improved model.

  • Brilliant! Thank you for sharing.

  • Useful!!

  • Steamer! Excellent idea. Lint roller also excellent. I have had sweater stones, sweater shavers, various gadgets I was never happy with. The lint roller first might just do the trick!

  • I clicked the link for the pattern and it has been discontinued.

  • This 2 step is a great idea, thanks Kay! My sweater shaver works wonders but using the lint roller first is sublime.

  • Thank you!

  • Lint roller before! Great idea! A few months ago I saw a YouTube video about pilling (10 yrs old): NEVER pull a pill off a sweater, always cut them. Reason: from abrasion (think arms against body) pills form from fibers pulling out of their strand & coming to the surface, so if you pull a pill you pull more fibers to the surface that will then pill from abrasion. Makes sense. My first de-piller was a little shaver (worked great). Eventually from rave reviews I gave it up first for a Lilly Brush then for a Gleener, all remove pills but they always come back. So now I’m using the little shaver again & doing a test to see if less pilling occurs or not on a particularly pilly-prone sweater. And no more joy from picking off pills like popping bubble wrap 🙁 No matter the form of pill removal I’m always aghast at the amount of fiber removed—eventually there’ll be no sweater, just a pile of lint. So lint rolling first might at least help with removing less fiber when de-pilling. Thnx Kay! My experiment continues.

  • Thank you, Kay. I have a very much loved, very warm, very commercial (sh-h Target) sweater that seems to be All pills lately but looks so good on that I hate to toss it. So until I make my first Lett/Plotu-lopi sweater (or more likely, vest) . I will try that lint roller thingy (since my Lilly brush is also nowhere to be seen. You’d think being red, it would be waving its bristles, but it’s shy that way.)

  • Very good reminders of some sweater maintenance that will help distract me from those things from which I need to be distracted in January 2025!

  • Well that’s brilliant! I even had my sticky roller at VKL; there’s always one in my suitcase. But where oh where is my Lilly brush? Thanks for the reminder!

  • As convenient as they are, I cannot bring myself to use disposable plastic sheet sticky tape lint rollers. I am still trying to do the best I can for Mother Earth, despite how pointless it often feels.

    • Thank you for this. You are not the only one in the world who avoids plastic do-hickies, no matter how “convenient.” There is short-term, and there is long-term.
      There is short-term sweater perfection and there is long-term Mother Earth. When you “throw away” that indestructible plastic, where is “away”?

  • How cruel to show us such a lovely pullover that is no longer in print. Please could you or one of your followers please tell me where I can purchase the Highland Bling pattern?

  • Appreciate all the ideas on de pilling.
    Would appreciate an article on how to choose yarn that would be less likely to pill. What fiber characteristics are important? We started discussing this at our knitting gathering this week, but didn’t get very far.

    • Complicated topic w/no good answers I’ve ever found other than the softer the yarn the more prone to pilling. So those wonderfully soft & expensive luxury yarns that I love can be the worst for pilling. However, it depends on fiber content & how the yarn is spun, what it’s used for, and even the stitch pattern used. I’d love to see more on this topic too! For example, I’ve used Woolfolk Tynd, a soft luxurious merino. First project a brioche scarf w/lots of crisscrossing patterning, has held up nicely. It felt divine so I bought more. Then made a vest, stockinette, pills terribly! Still have more so next project I’ll hold it together with a strand of Kidsilk Haze in hopes it will strengthen & tame it, to be determined. I have used Kidsilk Haze in combination with other yarns or doubled and even with all its haze it never pills I assume because it isn’t wool.

  • Wow! Thank you!

  • Perfect timing for this tip, so thank you! My sweaters have also been seeing a lot of wear.

  • The difference in the sleeves is amazing thanks for the tip.

  • Please be careful when choosing to use a sticky lint roller, as they leave a layer of sticky behind, which means – of course – that the garment picks up even more lint.

    If you must use one, use it before washing, not afterwards!

  • Genius idea and a big thank you for letting this secret out!

  • What a great idea to roll it before depilling it.

  • Very interesting. I’m always nervous using the shaver as you have to press so hard! Thanks for this great idea.

  • I don’t know what a Lilly Brush is – have to check it out. I bought a stand alone spinner to spin the water out of my knits. I love it. I’m not at home so I can’t tell you the brand. My washer always squirted a bit of water at the beginning of the spin which scared me.

  • My head just exploded! Thanks for sharing this immediately useful information!

  • What a fabulous sweater!! Love the sequins.

    I’ve been trying to find the pattern but no luck.

    Do you know where I can find it?

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