How to Get Beautiful Yarn Cheaply
Yarn Reclamation Recycles Old Sweaters Into New Projects
Mar 10, 2009
Spring may come in like a lamb and out like a lion: For those nights with roaring winds, a cosy hobby like knitting may be ideal - except for the cost of yarn. Yarn reclaiming is a way to recycle wool, cotton or any knit-worthy fabric to provide beautiful yarn on the cheap.
What is Yarn Reclaiming?
Recycling knitted clothes for their yarn is called “yarn reclamation” or "frogging" by knitters and frugal crafters. This cost effective measure prevents unloved sweaters from hitting the junkyard, which in turn reduces our carbon footprint – not to mention a knitter’s budget.
Recycling Old Knits from Used Clothes
Essentially a fancy term for unravelling, yarn reclamation is finding a renaissance in today’s economy. More people are learning how to make their own clothes, or recycling old outfits to transform into new ones.
Buying a gently used sweater and unravelling it is a way to get several skeins of good quality yarn at a fraction of the price it would cost in a yarn shop. All that is needed is patience and dexterity in picking out the seams and locating the threads, for collecting the yarn for your next project.
How To Choose Knits That can be Reclaimed Easily
Check to see if the used sweater, or blanket is stained, felted or moth-eaten; while holes can be easily knotted together, a pilly or stained patch can make for one or several uneven marks in your new knit.
Finding something that unravels easy is one thing; the way to actually cut it or get the yarn unravelling evenly is another. A tightly woven machine weave can be difficult to pick out; serged fabric may only yield small increments of thread, instead of continuous yarn. With some machine-knit material, the thread is also often too fine to use – this might make a first time yarn recycling experience unnecessarily challenging.
How to Recycle Yarn
- Look for smooth yarn that is the same variety all the way through; some sweaters with patterns knit into it by way of differently coloured yarn would yield you an uneven amount of yarns, and not a sufficient amount for one new project.
- Once you have found an old blanket, sweater or knit item for reclamation, search for the seam. If it is serged, discard it. If it looks like a double edge of knit rows, you can pick it out with scissors to start your new item.
- Start with the bottom of the seam, and look for stray loose threads that may have been sewn into the hem, or seam. Give it a pull and start your snipping and unravelling there.
- Wind the yarn around the back of a chair or two spare pipes, if you don’t have a Niddy-Noddy. At this point, it will be ready for washing, which will straighten out some kinks as well as cleaning it before use.
- Dump the skeins into a tub filled with cold water with some delicates-friendly detergent; wash by hand, and hang to dry. Do not wring the water out, just squeeze the excess moisture out gently by hand.
Resources for Learning how to Reclaim Yarn
An excellent resource is by a woman named Christine, whose blog Chaotic Crafter features a terrific step-by-step article about yarn recycling, which includes photographs of the process.
Other great places to keep an eye out for tips would be the DIY Network, or just try Googling Yarn Recycling or Yarn Reclamation Tips.
Recycling yarn can be a fun craft in itself to help unwind after a long day – pardon the pun. However, the positive impact of spending a few dollars on what would normally cost more for yarn alone is a cheap but beautiful way to sustain your hobby.
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