Managing Pilling in Wool Knitwear

If you’ve been living in your Marty Lynn sweater, you may have noticed a bit of pilling starting to appear.

Over time, friction causes the shortest wool fibres to gather on the surface of your garment. It’s one of the natural ways wool softens and settles into regular wear, creating those tiny fuzzed areas that we call pills.

At Marty Lynn, we mostly work with woollen-spun yarn, which means the fibres are carded in many directions before spinning. This process traps tiny pockets of air, making the yarn lighter, warmer, and beautifully soft, but it can also lead to a bit more pilling, especially in the early days of wear. To me, that’s part of the charm.

To manage pilling, I recommend using a small pair of sharp scissors to carefully snip away the pills instead of using a wool comb, which results in more pilling over time. This gentle, hands-on approach protects the surrounding fibres and actually helps reduce future pilling. It’s a little slower, but it keeps the wool strong and intact.

For those who don't mind the investment, the Steamery Pilo 2 Fabric Shaver achieves a similar result in less time.  

Knitwear experts and traditional wool crafters often say that when we take time to make and care for what we wear, we deepen our connection to it.

So grab your scissors (or fabric shaver), put on a favourite show, and spend a few minutes caring for your sweater. There’s something deeply satisfying about watching the surface smooth out and feeling the wool revive under your hands.

The more you care for your knitwear, the longer it will be part of your life.