Sunday, March 24, 2013

Straightening Some Yarn

I knitted through a whole cone of yarn on my current project, and probably won't have enough on the cone to do the button band of the cardigan.

From time to time, I reuse knitted yarn.  It's generally not a great idea to mix straightened yarn and fresh yarn, but if I do the button band with all straightened yarn, there won't be a variation in the finished knitted texture.  Lots of people take apart sweaters to unravel or unravel unfinished projects and reuse the yarn by straightening it with steam.

You can buy gadgets for this, but you don't need a gadget.  I just use my stove and a pan of water.  The water boils in the pan, the lid is propped up with two silicone spatulas.  You could use wooden spoons, or whatever you have.

It works best to unravel and rewind into kinkly little balls first, then do the steaming from a nicely untangled ball.  Then you run the yarn under the lid and into the yarn winder.  Wind the yarn into a ball S L O W L Y, and you've got nicely straightened, ready-to-use yarn.

8 comments:

  1. I was just searching for articles on steaming reused yarn last night and found this which might also be interesting to try.
    http://www.machineknittingmonthly.net/index.php/letters/unravel_it/
    I am quite new to machine knitting but when I look at my first two garments I know I could do a much better job now and want to unravel them. I think you must have been reading my mind Diana. I can't quite see in your photo, are you winding this yarn straight onto a cone with your wool winder beside your stove?

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  2. Apologies Diana, I have just realised I can click on the photo to make it larger and I can see you have your wool winder beside you. Your process looks very easy to follow - must get unravelling!

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  3. I knitted the unraveled yarn, and it looks just fine.

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  4. I've done similar over my clothes steamer nozzle. Be careful on a gas range!

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  5. Thank you Diana. I have a couple of projects which were abandoned for one reason or another and was wondering how to reuse the wool, so now I know. Kindest regards Anne

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  6. I chickened out and didn't steam the yarn on the stove as it's a gas one. I did try it in the microwave and it looks good to me. Didn't take very long to do so that was handy. I'm going to start knitting with it tomorrow. Another thing you have inspired me to try Diana!

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  7. I have successfully used your method on my unraveled swatch, as I needed the yarn to finish my project.
    Thanks Diana !

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