Read this http://saunshine.blogspot.com/2007/01/yarn-review-truth-about-knitpicks.html
OH dear…that doesn’t look good! There are several people making Central Park Hoodie with it and probably other projects as well. Too bad…it’s a pretty yarn!
She did not specify if she ran it through the dryer. I made the Irish Hiking Scarf out of it for the Red Scarf Project and I washed it before sending and a laid it flat to dry and block. If anything it grew in length and my washed piece looked lots better than her example.
One of my questions is why is she washing in warm water for heaven’s sake? I only wash in cold water and that is pretty much everything we own except for sheets, which I wash in hot for health reasons. I think she is being unfair when she didn’t wash in both cold and warm water for her experiments! As for drying, I think drying in a dryer helps produce the fuzzy effect and I try to avoid drying handknits in the dryer unless I don’t care whether or not they fuzz.
I knit a little shrug with Swish to test before I made a sweater (needless to say, the sweater is still not finished) and it didn’t shrink or get anywhere NEAR that faded and old looking. I think I washed it on cold and I’m pretty sure I put it in the dryer with my t-shirts. :shrug:
I made two sweaters from swish for my boys and I would wash them in cold water and I would put them in the dryer for about 10 min and then lay them out to dry the rest of the way. Both of the sweaters shrunk and look like the picture. I bought the yarn because I thought it would be a good choice for kids clothes, but I know I won’t be buying that yarn again.
Yikes. I’m using Swish for my Wicked sweater, and I was kind of hoping that it would shrink a little, but it looks like it only shrinks with respect to row guage, so that would leave me too wide and too short. I wonder if I’ll be brave enough to test it out in the washer. It’s either that or the dry-cleaning pile, because I’ve shrunk sweaters by handwashing them before. :doh:
:??
Okay, I’m REALLY confused by that review. I feel like she left out key paragraphs about what she was doing.
Thank you for posting the review. Always nice to have something to keep in mind when choosing a yarn for a project. 
I think that review is kinda incomplete. Take it with a grain of salt. The wear of the yarn in her pics is kind of misleading.
I knit my husbands socks (the socks for my ML tutorial) out of Swish Superwash. Now, I will say that this yarn fuzzes like the dickens in the wash, but so is true for lots of superwash wools, especially SOFT superwash wools. Knowing this, I wash his socks inside out.
He’s worn these socks several times, all day long at work. I’ve washed them 4 times with abandon. In cold water, regular Tide detergent, with his jeans and work shirts, and machine dried, with no real concern for them… they are socks after all.
They look great considering the harsh wear they’ve already gotten.
Click for a larger pic. The sock on the left is inside out, so you can see how it fuzzes. Wash your Swish items inside out! (This is a good rule of thumb for ALL machine washable knits!)
Oh, and I’ve joined yarn in the middle of the leg portion, with no knots, and the join has held up just fine. I can not believe she’s stating that a join WILL come out and you’ll have to reknit the whole item. That is just crazy talk. :doh:
That is a great review, Silver! I trust what you are saying and showing more than the woman on the link. Thanks!
hmmm maybe I should buy a skein and knit up a few swatches and test different ways of washing/drying them. I had been tempted to buy this to make various sweaters out of it.
That’s a good idea.
Silver, thanks for your review…no offense to the woman who wrote the review, but I was reading it and felt like large chunks of her process and other important information weren’t mentioned.
Thanks for posting that Silver! That’s exactly the yarn I’m using on my sweater, same color and everything. I feel much better now. I can do inside out. A few fuzzies don’t even bother me.
You’re welcome! Glad I could help.
Another point I wanted to make is that people need to remember that Knit Picks yarn is not top shelf stuff. It if was, it wouldn’t be as affordable as it is. If you want a perfect non-fuzzy, non-shrinking, superwash merino, by all means, spend $25 a ball somewhere else. But when you consider the quality AND the price, KP yarn IS a really, really great value, if not the best value in the yarn world. I just don’t think it’s fair to “knit pick” (HAHA!) the details of a value yarn as if it were the really expensive stuff.
And yes, in case you couldn’t tell, I am partial to KP. I have a serious KP fetish, so take that into consideration too! :teehee:
My shrug looks about like the socks you posted, Silver, only not quite as fuzzy as the inside out one - but it’s only been washed/dried once.
I think the linked review experiment was conducted intentionally trying to shrink the pieces and that’s what makes it sort of misleading. :roll:
what to do with items that can’t be washed inside-out like blankets and the like? should a sweater shaver be given with the gifts? (bought 10 balls for a baby set and LOVE THE YARN!) i am also with some of you on the wth is with the warm water and wool?! i’m a boy that doesnt’ do good laundry and i know better than that. 
superwash wool is STILL WOOL and will shrink if you make it, no matter what brand it is, you still have to take some care of it. (ETA:This sounds cranky and mean, I don’t mean it like that, I swear. 
I’m just saying, even with treatment, still an animal fiber and still pamper your handknits, even if you use the washer! (pampering in this case being cold water and gentle cycle and maybe only part drying) :mrgreen:
ETA2: I just noticed ctmax’s post and now I’m nervous!!! ECH! She took the exact care I was anticipating! meh meh meh!
kristin, perfect sentiments about KP, too, and I wholeheartedly agree! Their Alpaca Silk is one of my favorite yarns in the world. Yeah, sometimes I have to pick bits of silk out of it as I’m knitting, but at $4 a ball for buttah like that, i’m not complaining.
ETA3: :teehee: i find the swish has a very similar feel when knitting to artyarns supermerino, anyone else note that?
Well, I haven’t used Swish so I don’t know. But in Saun’s defense (cuz I like her blog), she isn’t the only one who’s said this about Swish:
http://knittersreview.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=73532򏝇