You hear a lot of people talking about using Cascade 220 superwash wool. It comes in a lot of colors, is relatively affordable.

But that’s all there is to recommend it. It’s very blah yarn. The wonderful, natural wool characteristics have been ripped from these sad fibers and what you have is lifeless, convenient yarn.

I bought three balls of slightly deep red Cascade 220 when I first got into knitting a year or two ago. I was going to make myself a neat scarf. I like red, and this seemed like a logical choice for yarn. It was recommended by my LYS proprietor. I have tried to use it on three projects so far but it’s crappy.

I’m working on a lace scarf for my niece using it. I have recently become amused by the way the holes and pattern open up as you knit lace, and thought this would be a fun experiment and a way to use up this red yarn. But as I use it I am realizing that this is overrated yarn. Along with being eroded and lifeless, it looks very dull, and on top of that I find that the dye doesn’t fully penetrate they strands in all places. Probably does for 99.5 percent, but I find here and there that some inside fibers that are lighter or even white.

For texture I liken it to the Peaches and Cream brand cotton yarn I used for some other projects. It is very “soft” but not like alpaca, which is NICE soft. This is soft because it has been stripped of most of its natural wool characteristics. I’m also somewhat intuitive and the vibe I get from this superwash is like the difference of vibe between bleached cotton and unbleached cotton. The natural-state fibers are so much more alive.

The superwash process creates a wool yarn you can theoretically put in the washer without it fulling. It does this by chemically removing or coating over the scales on the wool fibers so they can’t catch on each other and tangle. The fibers in Cascade 220 are clearly eroded and thinner. They are softer because they are thinner, and thus feel rather lifeless for wool. The tactile sense is important to me for fibers as that is the spirit and heart of the sensory experience of a fabric.

As I mentioned in another post, I am phasing out all synthetic yarns, and now any superwash – which I will be calling “superdead”. Cascade 220 is for me the overcooked vegetables of the yarn world. Eventually I will get away from synthetic dyes and maybe even dye my own with natural substances. I really like single ply yarn as it look so old fashioned. To me that is real yarn.

UPDATE: I have found that the frost effect produced by the method below doesn’t necessarily last very long with the friction of the yarn over it, so I’m looking into better ways to frost the tips. You don’t want to keep going over them with steel wool as that will wear them down. I will say that you do get used to the clarity of the tips after a while, so you may not need to bother if your eyesight is good enough. Use them for a while and see what you think.

I got a sample of the new Knitpicks.com Zephyr acrylic Options circular needles and liked them a lot at first try, so I ordered a set. In the days before they arrived I played with them more and started to feel that I didn’t really like the glass-like clarity much. It made it harder to see what I was doing. I could see the yarn through the needles as well as in front of it and in placing the needle tip that made it a good bit less distinct than I preferred.

I don't like seeing the yarn through the needles like this.

In the mean time the box with my set arrived and I let it sit on the dining table until I could come up with a decision or solution. I looked on the internet for ways to stain the acrylic a less transparent color but found nothing. Then it occurred to me I could just make the tips frosted by going over them with steel wool.

The tape gives the frosting a nice, even edge.

So what I did was wrap some scotch tape around the needle one inch from the tip, nice and straight around the shaft. I tried some 000 steel wool but it didn’t give it enough of a frost, so I tried some #1 steel wool, which is courser. It does leave some faint lines in the surface but as it is more abrasive the overall effect was better frosting.

Twisting the tips evenly in the #1 grade steel wool.

You will want to experiment with how to do this; how hard to pinch and where. I wrapped the tip in a bit of the steel wool and twisted sideways, working my way to the tip and back, dusting it off and checking where I was missing. Then I went lengthwise toward the tip to give it a crosswise abrasion, then again did it twisting side to side. Dust off the tip on some cloth to see how it’s coming. Compare it to an untreated tip and see if it’s frosty enough. Remove the tape when you have the frost effect the way you want it.

The frostiness will be reduced by the angle of the lighting or oil from your hands. The one on the left has not been frosted yet.

I tested my first treated pair and find it is very satisfactory. The distracting transparency is much reduced. Additionally, the smoothness and slip of the needle tips is further reduced. Whereas the Zephyrs have a sort of faint creaky feeling or sound when new, the frosted ones feel and sound more like bamboo. This is fine with me as less slip is one of the reasons I got them.

If you try this you do it at your own risk. Be methodical. Also, be aware that steel wool sheds a lot, so do it over newspaper and be sure to dump the shed fibers in the trash. If they get on the rug and ever get wet they will rust and stain the carpet. You may want to vacuum when you are done for good measure. If you don’t like the frostiness you can reverse it SOME by using 0000 steel wool or maybe with clear nail polish.

So I decided to keep the Zephyrs. They do have the sharpness, friction and travel-worthiness I was looking for, and they do have a certain futuristic elegance.