As a good knitter, surely you have a project that you started one day, but without knowing how or why, you ended up leaving in the background to start other things that you wanted to knit more. After some time, you know you’ll never finish the project, but you love the yarn and want to reuse it. No doubt, you’ve tried knitting something else with it and found that the fabric just doesn’t look the same as when you first took off the label. In this step by step, we’ll teach you how to reuse yarn that you’ve already knitted.
For this tutorial, we’re going to use a sample that we had already knitted and blocked in our Pima cotton. If you have wool instead of cotton, don’t worry. The process that we’re going to teach you here is exactly the same. You’ll also need a container to be able to soak the material and some yarn in a color lighter than the one you’re going to undo (white or natural would be ideal) to keep the color from running.
The first thing is to pull out, or frog, they yarn you’ve knitted.
At the same time that you’re pulling out the yarn, wind it into a ball so that it doesn’t knot up.
When you’ve pulled out all the yarn, it’s time to make it into a hank. To do this, use a book if you don’t have much yarn. Use the back of a chair if you have a lot of yarn. If you have a swift or winder, you could also use that for this step.
After winding the hank, find the ends of the yarn.
Place the ends as you see in the image above, following their natural direction within the hank.
Now we’re going to make sure that the hank doesn’t fall apart during the process. Cut a couple strands of the lighter colored yarn and tie them around the skein. Put one of them where the ends cross so that later when you soak it, they don’t get tangled, and you can work comfortably.
Dip the skein completely in water at room temperature. Slowly push it down so that it is completely submerged, and the top part also gets wet. Remember that if the water is hot, your yarn will tend to shrink, and in the case of wool, to felt.
At the same time that you’re soaking the yarn, begin stretching it a little, so that the curls relax.
Let the skein soak for at least half an hour.
When the yarn is ready, squeeze out the water, wringing it without twisting it.
To remove excess water, wrap the hank in a towel and squeeze gently, without rubbing. Repeat this process as many times as necessary until the yarn is no longer dripping.
Put the skein on a hanger and let it dry out in place without direct sunlight.
Once you have the dry hank, remove the strands you used to tie it up.
Wind it loosely into a ball, taking care not to stretch the yarn too much. Now, you’re ready to start a new project with the yarn as if you just took off the label.
We hope you find this step by step useful and that you use it to give new life to that yarn that you’ve had hibernating. Don’t forget to share your new projects on social media with the hashtag #weareknitters. It’s always a pleasure!
