Yarn Detective
Unraveling yarn
Maybe it’s spring-cleaning time or a new-found commitment to recycle and reuse—but I’ve noticed a lot of knitters reclaiming yarn from their WIPs, UFOs, older finished projects, and/or thrifted sweaters.
I have a hat I wore this winter that never quite fit right. Now is the perfect time to get that yarn back.
I rip out and reknit pretty regularly. I like to start projects—but I’m not great at finishing them and I have an issue with my gauge changing over the life of a project. I have more projects that don’t cross the finish line than do.
I also love a great thrift score.
I talked to a knitter recently that said she knits straight from unraveled yarn, when it looks like curly-whirly, dried uncooked ramen noodles. Girl, no. Or, at least, know what you are getting in to if you don’t reset your yarn.
I always wash or reset the yarn after ripping out a project. I wind my yarn onto a swift, tie it in four places, and finish it like I would a knitted object: soak it in warm water and wool wash, roll it in a towel, and hang it to dry.
I want my yarn to be close to how it was when I knit the project the first time. It makes it easier to knit and gives a smoother fabric.
Washing the yarn takes out the kinks, which are the loops that used to be stitches. It brings back loft if the yarn was compressed due to a tight gauge or from lots of wearing. It cleans the yarn of dirt, body oils, and smells (I cannot with that thrift store smell).
My hat rode around in bags, pockets, on the floor of my car, and on various members of my family’s heads for a winter. The yarn definitely needed a wash for more than unkinking.
I unraveled my hat. The yarn is a chunky Shetland that I bought at the Michigan Fiber Festival last summer from Bellwether Farm.
I decided to knit without refinishing my yarn to see what happens.
I do like texture in my knitting, but I want to control it. But how much texture is it really, how different from a yarn that’s been soaked, rolled and hung?
I reset the rest of my yarn and knit a swatch using the same needles and stitch count.
A quick wash and a couple hours hung outside gave me yarn that was smooth and unkinked.
This yarn was so much easier to knit with. The kinked-up yarn was squirrely to knit. It occasionally hopped off my needles if the tension wasn’t tight and I split the ply frequently.
My swatches gave me a lot of information.
Maybe if gauge wasn’t important and I wanted the texture that the unraveled yarn gives, I might knit with it.
The swatch on the left was knit from freshly unraveled yarn; on the right is the unraveled yarn that’s been washed. Looking at them from an angle (the bottom photo) really shows the effect the reclaimed yarn had on my knitting. The difference in gauge is about .5 stitch to the inch less with the freshly unraveled yarn.
What about being clever and blocking that fabric after knitting with the reclaimed yarn?
The swatch on the left is my original unraveled, unfinished yarn swatch. I finished it by soaking, and letting it dry flat.
The swatch on the right is the same swatch knitted with finished yarn. The gauge of these two is the same.
They are much closer visually, but I still prefer the swatch knit from the reclaimed, washed yarn. As with all things, your mileage and taste may vary.
Over on social media, there’s a trend for finishing your reclaimed yarn, where a knitter will set up a yarn winding system over a lidded pot of boiling water.
The reclaimed yarn is on one side of the stove (usually in a ball or on a swift), the pot lid has a hole in it which the yarn is threaded through and then wound into a cake by a ball winder on the other side of the stove. The yarn is pulled through the steam to reset it.
Clever! But it’s not something I would do for a couple of reasons. I wouldn’t wind a damp yarn under tension because it makes it stretch and may affect gauge. The other reason is that winding damp yarn into a cake prevents it from drying well and it may mildew, or, at least, get a little wiffy.
If you want to try it, use a swift on the receiving side of the steam, wind the yarn with as little tension as possible, and hang your skein to dry.
And tell us how it went.
Want a little more procrastination? The MDK homepage is a total rabbit hole.
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At the age of 72, I’m purchasing my first real home. No spouse to please and I will decorate as I find the perfect pieces. I’ve not put my address on my stationary since I lived with my parents because I never felt like I had a home. Married and divorced x2 with 2 children who haven’t spoken to me in 14 years, no reason given. I will have my own home and a place to put all of my yarn !
Dear Annie, I feel your Joy, be healthy and happy in your New home! With love from France, Marguerite
Wishing you happiness-enjoy your new home!
YEAY and HURRAY for reclaiming… CLAIMING your life!!
Enjoy your new home, Annie! Wishing you the best. I hope you find those perfect pieces, and please order beautiful stationary.
Thanks. I needed that.
Wow!
Excellent information Jillian! Especially “WOW” for the visuals from the swatches!
I’ll admit that I often just reknit after I frog. Perhaps only a few rows worth of yarn makes little enough difference in an overall project to lessen my transgressions? At any rate, as a bona fide “show me don’t tell me” learner, you have & I have & I now have reasons galore to rethink my tendencies!
Great information. I have a WIP that will probably soon (ok, someday) be frogged and this is very helpful! Thank you.
Wow!
Excellent information Jillian! Especially “WOW” for the visuals from the swatches!
I’ll admit that I often just reknit after I frog. Perhaps only a few rows worth of yarn makes little enough difference in an overall project to lessen my transgressions? At any rate, as a bona fide “show me don’t tell me” learner, you have & I have & I now have reasons galore to rethink my tendencies!
I often have to frog a large portion of a project. How would you reset that yarn while it is still attached to the project? Well, I don’t.
I never had any problem with reknitting it as is. I can’t see the difference in my projects between original knitted and reknit portions.
Maybe it’s because I handwind my frogged yarn in a ball. I think this stretches out the kinks.
Jillian, you have me thinking. That whack of lilac bouclé yarn I bought many years ago for when bouclé comes back into fashion? Is it really bouclé? Or just unfinished reclaimed yarn. Better I give it the smell test, at the very least. And Annie, enjoy that house. You deserve it! (After raising seven children and becoming a widow, a lovely neighbor of hours gave herself an All White bedroom. Even under better circumstances, most women can relate.)
Button bands. Even pattern instructions sometimes say frog and reknit until it’s right. I do what Katrijn does, I rewind into a ball. But it is true that a splitty yarn becomes more splitty.
Thank you thank you. I could never quite figure out how to reset yarn after I frogged a project. All I could see was hours of untangling after soaking a pile of yarn and could not imagine how the yarn wound in a ball would reset it
What a great lesson I always appreciate the photos to illustrate your work. I think I would always wash used yarn just to get the body oils and scents out of it. But the examples are great to show how important it is for gauge. Thanks!
Thank you for more great tips, Jillian! Your information is timely, as always…I need to frog some UFPs that I lost interest in a long time ago and was just wondering about the best method for reclaiming the yarn…now I know.
After one early attempt at reknitting yarn from a WIP that had been sitting for ages I’ve always washed (or at least soaked), dried, and rewound my yarn before starting something new. I LOVE the use of ‘reset’ to describe this process in far fewer words!
A shortcut if the yarn isn’t really dirty, just kinky: wind onto a drying rack (or two hangers) and hit with a steamer. Allow to dry, then rewind for use. Sometimes yarn exits this process looking better than new.
How does one get a bunch of yarn onto a swift? My 3D challenged brain is asking.
First I make a ball or balls with the re-claimed (frogged) yarn. I set up the swift with the arms extended and tie the loose end of the yarn ball to one of the arms on the swift. I put the yarn ball in a bowl or large floral vase. This keeps the yarn from bouncing all over the floor as I wind it onto the swift. I guide the yarn to wrap around the swift and turn the swift by hand to wind all the yarn onto it. Then tie the yarn in 4 places to keep it together and remove the entire kinky mess from the swift. Soak in water with wool wash and clap your hands that you DID tie the yarn in four places before you took it off the swift. Now you will have a wet kinky mess that needs a place to drip dry. I let the wet hanks hang in my bathtub until dry. The yarn will be nice and (mostly) straight again when it’s dry and then it gets draped on the swift again to be made into a new ball.
a.k.a. winding yarn into a hank. Can use a swift for it, or a chair back, or a friend’s hands (or feet), or a tool called a niddy-noddy, or even your own arms for that matter.
Options abound, and instructions and YouTube videos – I googled on “winding yarn into a hank”, and found many.
I just discovered a Knitty Noddy to wind my reclaimed yarn into a skein. Then I tie it in several places, wash it, hang it to dry and rewind it. It is very satisfying to reclaim yarn from that sweater that never fit, or that UFO I never really enjoyed knitting. Not that I don’t love a newly purchased hank of bright, recently dyed yarn!
Wow! What an eye opener this article is to me. I would just reknit the yarn and yes your swatches are exactly how my project looked. Great informative article.