KNIT MAGAZINE

"About anti-pill processing" that suppresses knit's great enemy pilling

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Hello, this is Yagi.

“Hairball” that is worrisome when wearing a knit … Care for pills is troublesome … You may think that.

Therefore, we recommend threads that have been processed to suppress hairballs and have “anti-pill processing”!

Why do you have pills in the first place?

Pilling is formed by rubbing the fibers against each other and entwining the surface of the fibers with fluff.

In particular, the yarn used for winter knit items is required to be soft and bulge, so there are many sweet-twisted yarns, and the density of the knitted fabric is sweeter than that of woven fabrics, so it is said that pills are more likely to occur.

In addition, the scales on the surface of wool and animal hair fibers have a great influence on the cause of easy entanglement.

What is fiber scale (scales)?

The fiber scale (scales) is what is called the cuticle of human hair. (* The photo above is the scale of the fiber.) These scales get caught and entangled to form a pill. Larger scales make it easier to get entangled and make pills.

Processing to suppress pilling (anti-pill processing)

As I just explained, pills can be made by entwining scales. Processing to prevent the scale from getting entangled is called “anti-pill processing”. Here are some typical anti-pill treatments.

Resin processing

Processing to prevent the scale from rising by coating the surface of the thread with resin.

Although there is a drawback that the texture becomes harder by coating with resin, soft resin etc. are being developed.

Off-scale processing

Off-scale processing is generally a chemical method that dissolves scale with chemicals. The mainstream is to use chlorine-based chemicals.

Croy processing (shrink-proof) and basolan processing (semi-shrink-proof) are available.

Gas baking process

It is a process to smooth the surface by burning the fluff on the surface of the thread with a gas flame.

The thread is passed through the flame at high speed to burn the fluff.

summary

The process of suppressing pills has a shrink-proof effect because it removes the scale that is also the cause of knit shrinkage, so some items can be washed.

However, there are cases where the original texture of the thread is lost, so I would like you to choose whether you want the function or the original texture.

Thank you for reading to the end.

See you next time.