Many times, our customer service department receives questions about our new products with regard to their washability, durability, texture and so on.  Recently, a couple days after the launch of our new Dishie line, a customer called in and asked our wonderful representative, Daryl, whether the yarn colors would bleed or fade in the wash.  She also inquired whether the texture and feel were comparable to one of our competitors’ 100% cotton yarn. 

When we are selecting new yarn lines, we always go through a vigorous vetting process to determine whether the yarn is up to our standards.  As soon as we receive the yarn samples, we distribute the yarn to two or more knitters and/or crocheters to swatch.  We do this for three reasons: to test gauge, to make sure the spin is consistent, and to see how the yarn looks once it’s worked up.  Once we have swatches in place, we essentially beat one of them up.  We wash it in hot and cold water, we put it in the wash with heavy items, and test to see how it will hold up with a lot of abuse.  Next, we wash another swatch according to the care instructions that we recommend.  Once we know how the yarn works up and holds up, we make our decision.  One thing that we hadn’t done in the past is bleach the yarn.  Until now.

When Daryl got the phone call about whether Dishie‘s yarn colors would bleed or fade, she decided to go home and test it out.  She knit up a swatch with the deep red color, Pomegranate, and the white/cream color, Swan. 

She first washed the swatch in hot water to see if any of the red color would transfer over to the white.  The result?  The white stayed as white as ever. (Sorry about the horrible pics!)

Next, she compared the colors after the bleaching to the original colors and, once again, there was no change. 

After having such great results with the bleach test, Daryl also wanted to test how Dishie felt again our competitors’ yarn.  She knit up another dishcloth with the two types of yarn sitting side-by-side. 

In a blind “feel test” our team squeezed and squished all parts of the dishcloth and were not able to tell the difference between the two yarns.  The end result of Daryl’s two tests are simply that Dishie is not only comparable to a more expensive 100% cotton yarn, it stands up to abuse and will not bleed or fade.  We hope that this information is helpful and we thank you for your great questions!