Saturday, February 17, 2007

Wear Test: Knit Picks Shine Sport

Those of you who read my blog while I was nesting in the last weeks of my pregnancy this summer heard a lot of gushing about Knit Picks Shine:

"It's so soft!"

"So easy to work with!"

"Produces such nice stitch definition."

"Amazingly enough, for a cotton yarn, it doesn't suck!"

The latter, in my opinion, was the highest praise. I always be a woolaholic. I know I'm in good company, right?

So how did Shine stand up to six glorious months of baby wear? Not too bad, all things considered (which means, "Not too bad given it's so cheap.")

Here is a striped baby tank top. Proportionally speaking, it seems wider now than it did when I made it. Granted, I have a skinny kid so everything looks wide on her. It's possible that it shrunk up a little - I can't say for certain. This tank hasn't seen as much wear as the next sweater so it's still in pretty good shape.

Yarn: Knit Picks Shine Sport
Pattern: Baby Tank from Debbie Bliss' Baby Knits Book
Needles: US 4

Now this argyle sweater has seen a lot of wear. And machine washing and drying, as the label professes is possible. Yes, I threw it in the washer in spite of the delicate shell buttons. They haven't broken yet... The sweater looks great from a distance. Even in this photo you can't see the problem.

A fine halo :Yarn: Knit Picks Shine
Pattern: Argyle Cardigan in Debbie Bliss' Special Knits
Needles: US 4

I imagine that's the 50% modal giving off the fuzz but what do I know? It just doesn't look quite as crisp as it did six months ago. Is this a bit picky? Perhaps, but if I spend hours knitting it, I don't want the sweater to go all Holy on me in six months. This won't keep me from buying more Shine because you all know I'm cheap; however, I won't gush as much about it in the future. I promise!

Finally, I have another picture of the red Cascade 220 sweater, this time with cute accompanying hat.


More tomorrow with some SP goodies and more!