It’s always particularly nice and soft the first time you put it on, but the one I got most recently is so bad it leaves a thin but thorough coat of black fur on my arms when I take it off. What’s the production methods used when making sweaters like this?

22 points

This mostly happens because they’re probably both cotton.

As you wash them, the oils the fabric was soaked in for protection slowly get removed, and the cotton fibres are rather crinkly. They can grab onto loose and weakened other fibres. This is also why some of them “ball” on the outside (no clue what it’s called in English). Now on the inside, it’s the shirt pulling loose fibres off the inside of the weapons, the tiniest break-offs.

To alleviate this - you can’t entirely fix it, other than wearing different combinations of materials instead of cotton on cotton - wash your sweaters inside-out, which you should do anyways, in particular on printed sweaters. Instead of the insides of the sweater rubbing together and depositing lots of loose broken fibres for the t-shirts to pull off, those will get pulled off inside the washing mashine.
Note: This increases the speed at which you get the “balling” (since now the outside rubs against itself), but on fibres that can do this you want to eventually use a fabric shaver every so often anyways if you don’t already.

permalink
report
reply
15 points

no clue what it’s called in English

Pilling

permalink
report
parent
reply
13 points

You corrected this but didn’t tell them it’s ‘arms’ not ‘weapons’ in this context? :)

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

These guns are registered, Mr Smith and Mr Wesson.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points
*
Deleted by creator
permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

Is it just a coincidence that your username is one letter away from being a type of sweater?

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Haha, yes in this case it is. It’s rather a typo from “Caraighan Maconar”, an Aes Sedai of the green Ajah from the Wheel of Time novels. Been using that forever, never realized how close it is to “cardigan”, usually people think it’s “Kerrigan” from Starcraft. 😄

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

I think he OP is specifically talking about a certaing kind of sweatshirt that, instead of being woven on the inside, has loose threads. It’s not even like a Teddy-fabric. The fabric is just non-woven and sheds microfibers like crazy the first few uses. But after a few washes that soft cushy inside is knotted and uncomfortable.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

The “balling” is called pilling

permalink
report
parent
reply
12 points

I believe this mostly happen with low quality clothing, they use shorter staple that deteriorate faster, aren’t as soft, and doesn’t feel as high quality. Brands mitigates this feeling by using chemical softeners that will fade with washing cycles and you’ll get what happens now.

Source: I’m really into clothing and used to buy cheap stuff because of cool prints or hype brands, now my high end cotton clothes don’t have those issues

permalink
report
reply
6 points

Do you have any recommendations for high quality clothing?

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

There’s a lot but some of my favourites are Document (Korean brand), Arpenteur (amazing brand from my city), A Kind of Guise (German brand), Borali (very small label, the blog is very worth it if you can read French/use a translator), Orslow, ADER error (although some pieces have a bit too much plastic but the ones I own are very sturdy, also a bit overpriced), Maison Kitsune (same but I’m too much into foxes to skip this one lol), Matsuda (Japanese eyewear, handmade with awesome details and materials), …

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points
*

Nobody seems to “just make high quality clothes” anymore. It’s always partly “we do clothing properly” but also “this is a modern art project, and also sometimes we don’t do clothing properly”.

The modern art vibes have always, frankly, disgusted me.

I’d much rather buy from a factory with a known location and a known manufacturing/tailoring process, with a sales tactic based purely on describing methodology and materials.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Asklemmy

!asklemmy@lemmy.ml

Create post

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it’s welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Icon by @Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de

Community stats

  • 9.6K

    Monthly active users

  • 5.5K

    Posts

  • 301K

    Comments