Considering how much chatting about knitting goes on here, you’d think I’d spend a bit more time talking about how I maintain my knits!
I first bought a Gleener about 5 years ago, after Tanis recommended it to me, and I still use it all the time- and not just on my hand knits. The wonderful Victoria from the company knew of my love of all things Gleener, and asked if I’d be interested in seeing the new Gleener On the Go as well as their new tote bags. I said yes, of course. As someone who travels quite regularly when I’m not on maternity leave, I’m pretty excited about their travel version.
For those of you scratching your heads and wondering what the heck a Gleener is, it’s a marvelous tool with a sweater de-fuzzer at one end, and a lint brush at the other end. The Gleener comes with 3 different de-fuzzing heads of varying levels of texture. The finest one is gentle on delicate fabrics (like lace), the medium is perfect for most of my knits, and the biggest one is best for sturdy or bulky fabrics, like hand knit socks with nylon blended in, or Aran weight sweaters knit in a high twist yarn.
It comes in the full size in 8 different colours (I chose Twitchin’ Tang) and they now have a new version for travel, which is pretty genius:
I photographed it beside the normal Gleener for comparison. The Gleener-to-go opens up and stores all the different size heads inside, and is incredibly lightweight.
I find it pretty challenging to photograph pills, but this baby sweater was originally knit for Lila back in 2012 by Tanis. It was a wonderful gift, and Lila wore it so much than when I pulled it out of storage recently for James, it was showing some pills. Look how much fuzz came off!
And it’s worth finishing off your efforts with the lint brush side:
James looks pretty happy with the results, don’t you think?
Funnily enough, I refer to this as something from my knitter’s toolbox, but I’m actually planning on getting my mom one, and she doesn’t knit at all. After all, anyone who owns knits, be they store bought or hand made, needs to take care of them. Mom, if you are reading this… act surprised.
I need a second to gush about the tote bag. Before I saw it in person I thought, “Sure, I could use another tote bag, that’s cute.” And then I got it in person and it’s easily the most high-quality tote bag I own. Thick, high quality cotton; great thick straps that don’t dig in, and the images are both screen printed and embroidered). There are three choices: the cat, small dog, or owl.
Do you guys also use a Gleener? Or another tool that helps keep your sweaters looking new?
