Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Shine review

I'm using Knitpicks Shine yarn for K's sweater. Grumperina asked my opinions of Shine yarn.

When I first saw the color swatches of Shine in the Knitpicks catalog and on their website I wrote off the yarn. Although the ball looked fine the swatches looked fuzzy. I figured that if the yarn fuzzed like that just by being wound for a swatch it wouldn't stand up to the wear of an actual garment. I thought the yarn would be like Kitchen cotton or Handicrafter yarn. Well, the cheapskate in my won out and I ordered enough for a small sweater (K's about to turn 4). At $2.29/50 gm I found the yarn to be very affordable. K's sweater cost $18.32. (I don't count the other $16 I spent to qualify for free shipping!)

Shine is definitely soft. The surface of the yarn has a soft silkiness to it but like most cottons it also has a firm density to it. As Grumperina has pointed out, softness is not always a desirable quality in a yarn. In this case the softness is appropriate. Although I have not done any kind of torture testing Shine seems to be durable enough to stand up to some wear. I did have to frog the beginning of the first cardigan front. I knit the design in intarsia which is something I should know better than to do by now. After the knitting, frogging and reknitting the yarn looked no different than the new length coming out of the ball.

The knitted fabric is very touchable. Its silky and has a really nice drape. It's a great choice of yarn for K. I would definitely use Shine for myself too.

There's been some discussion on the Ample-Knitters list about the differences between Modal and Tencel. I know that Tencel and Modal are both trademarked names but I'm still not sure if they are the same or different fibers. I've used a wool/tencel blend made by Cleckheaton that I liked very much. It was very soft too. It showed the effects of being frogged a little more than the Shine yarn does. That might be the difference between pairing wool or cotton with the tencel/modal.

I will definitely be using this yarn again. After I knit up all the yarn I bought at my LYS's Memorial Day sale. But that's a topic for another post!

Here's a gratuitous picture of rare sibling detente.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aha! Thank you for that review. I am in no rush to buy any just yet (plenty of other projects on the needles), but other than the splice/slub you showed us last time, I haven't heard one bad thing about Shine!

Anonymous said...

I've got some turquoise Shine to make a Shapely Tee, though I haven't started it yet. I've also been following the discussion on the Ample-Knitters list. I look forward to seeing K's sweater in progress/finished!

Thora said...

Thanks so much for the review of Shine. I have six balls in blush on my list to make a bonnet and Victorian t-shirt for a friend's baby that's due in September.

And the shawl is just gorgeous! That was so sweet of you to put it up. :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the review, but now I feel like I need some and, really, I don't, but really I do. Oh, dear...

Marguerite said...

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