I have a cone of 100% natural wool that I bought on ebay.
(J C Rennie 2/10S ENG Supersoft sable 2/125 NM 9667/0)
Can anyone tell me what these numbers mean?
I would say it is between laceweight and fingerweight. In the picture it appeared to be a cream color, but it is actually a very pale sand color (I’m guesing that’s why it is called sable). I thought I might knit a swatch and try to lighten it by using some bleach in the wash. Those of you that work with natural wool, can you advise me on this?
There is no way I would attempt to bleach all of this at one time, but was wondering if I could lighten the finished product. I bought it for making a shawl. I also have a cream colored angora sweater that I was hoping to recycle and perhaps knit the two starnds together, but not with the wool the color that it is now.
Thanks, Sandra from SC
AAAACCCCKKKKK!!! STOP!!!
Darlin, DON’T use bleach!!!:noway:
Think of it as hair, like yours n mine.
What does a woman do to lighten her hair?
She uses peroxide. Yep, good ol’ peroxide. Or lemon juice.
Both should work with for gradual lightening effect.
Just remember to rinse out your wool in cool water with a little hair conditioner.
k, as for the numbers, the first number, the 2, is the ply, I think the second number might be the wpi, or wraps per inch. You can double check that by taking some of the yarn and wrapping it around a knitting needle or pen, diameter doesn’t matter here (I checked) but you would wrap your yarn neatly but not tightly around the object and then count how many wraps there are in an inch. I am thinking that the second number on the second set is mm’s. As for the last set of numbers, I am thinking that, that is dye lot.
Then to cross reference what weight goes with what wpi you could go to www.halcyonyarn.com and they will have what goes with which on there.
I’ve been sitting here thinking more about this while waiting for a reply and those thoughts came to me. I remembered back in the 70’s (dating myself) that the blondes used SUN-IN to make their hair lighter and I used it to add high lights to my brunette hair. This product contained peroxide.
I husband’s brother even used Cologate toothpaste on his hair (by mistake) when he was around 11, thinking it was Brylcream. He wasn’t paying attention to what he had grabbed up. It worked though at lightening his hair, but I don’t think I’ll go that route.
I hope someone can direct me to good information about this. I can not find clear instructions on the web. Everything I find deals with dying it colors.
I would also like to suggest that you don’t put the items in the washer. The agitation will cause it to felt and ya don’t want that. Use your kitchen sink and cool water with either the peroxide or lemon juice and carefully swish n poke your item, but don’t agitate it. Let it sit til it’s reached a shade darker than you want (it will dry lighter), carefully rinse it out with fresh cool water and some conditioner. Roll it in a towel to get the excess moisture out and then lay it flat to dry.
Have you done this Fibrenut? Could I use both the, lemon juice and peroxide together? I’m just gonna have to do that swatch I talked about. I know about hand washing in the sink. That’s how I do my wool socks, but thanks for the reminder.
Ummmm… accidentally!!
And of course on my hair back in the day.
I don’t know what kind of chemical reaction you’ll get if you mix em. Beings one is citric and ascorbic acid and the other one is well peroxide.
Yeah, bleach will disintegrate your wool. Using bleach is actually one of the ways you can tell if a mystery yarn is wool or not…