How to straighten yarn after unraveling: a few simple ways

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:47

It is not always possible to get the right yarn. Stops the price, the lack of the required color or texture. It happens that you need quite a bit of thread to lengthen the sleeves of a children's sweater or repair torn areas on the elbows. Socks were once knitted from this yarn, but they have long lost their appearance.

Don't worry! Many craftswomen have adapted to using the most unpretentious old things, unraveling them and giving the yarn a new life. But after such an operation, the threads become curly and naughty. How to straighten the yarn after unraveling, without resorting to pulling the thread in tight balls and maintaining its volume? And is it worth knitting from used wool?

Mistakes of beginner knitters

When knitting was just beginning to take over and had not yet become a favorite hobby, beginners' attitudes towards yarn were impractical. They can throw away hanks of uninteresting color, cheap acrylic threads, and after unraveling the product, torn short remnants. An experienced knitter carefully stores the balls that are not yet needed, so that later she can find suitable ones among them.threads for embroidering a flower or a funny muzzle.

The same thing happens with the yarn already obtained from the unraveling of the old product. A mountain of curly threads, mostly short, suggests the immediate sending of this disgrace to the trash. However, if you take things seriously, you can prepare material for knitting. All you need to know is how to straighten the yarn after unraveling.

But why is it necessary? Experience tells us that the most skilled craftswomen cannot avoid the unevenness of the loops, even using yarn that is not very deformed. In the case when a pattern is created, it will not allow it to be done smoothly. And, in the end, after the first wash, the product will stretch.

Another omission for beginners is to save too much. For things "to go out" - dresses, coats, shawls - they take only new yarn. You can save on homemade sweaters, leggings, socks and every little thing.

Yarn fiber properties

The structure of the fibers determines such a method of renewing the threads as processing with moist air. Saturated with steam, the threads straighten and restore volume, which will not disappear after drying. Some, knowing this, try to knit the product with deformed threads in order to even out the appearance later by steaming. Unfortunately, this does not happen: the loops turn out to be of different sizes during operation, which becomes visible after steaming.

Exposure to steam can cause the yarn to shrink. Therefore, its temperature should not be too high. Acrylic yarn is notthreatened.

Someone can even wash the finished product and dry it by stretching it on the board to align the pattern. This is a good method for shawls and scarves, but they are usually knitted with new threads. For a sweater, this strategy can lead to skewed collars, armholes, different sleeves. Who would love this transformation? And there is nothing left but to straighten the yarn after unraveling.

Grandma's Method

To make a thread even, there is an old way. First, the wool is wound into skeins. For this, the hands of the gentleman are used, and in his absence, an inverted stool, on the legs of which wool can be wound. It is convenient for someone to use the back of a chair for this purpose. There are craftswomen who quickly wind the wool, like a climber using his own elbow.

In this case, it is important to monitor the tension of the thread - it should not be overtightened. Do not make the skeins too voluminous, it is better to divide all the yarn into several parts. Before removing the yarn from the spacers, it is tied with white thread in four places. It is impossible to tighten the thread strongly - it will pull the fibers of the yarn with an increase in its volume. Pulling too loose will cause the threads to tangle during washing.

After that, the skeins are washed in shampoo or wool detergent. How to straighten the yarn after unraveling and washing so that it straightens completely, does not shrink when dried? It is necessary to hang a weight to straighten the skein. It is convenient to pass a mop through the skeins and place its ends on the backs of twochairs. Water will drain from the yarn, you should substitute a basin. An interesting method of hanging a heavy ceramic mug instead of a load is known. It is attached with a thread by the handle, romantic and funny.

The less yarn was wound into skeins, the faster the washed wool will dry. It takes from several hours to one or two days, depending on the time of year and air humidity. It is strongly not recommended to speed up the drying process by placing the structure near the radiator - this will lead to a different thread size. With the current rhythm of life, many do not want to wait for the skeins to dry and invent new methods.

Teapot method

The idea of using steam pulling instead of a long procedure determined the so-called kettle method. Its essence is as follows: two glasses of water are poured into a classic enameled teapot. Its level should not reach the spout, where there are holes. The woolen thread is pulled from the outside to the inside of the teapot through the spout and exits through a wide opening with a lid. However, the kettle can be successfully replaced with a pot with a steam hole in the lid, as shown in the video.

The kettle is put on fire and the water is brought to a boil, after which the flame is reduced and a constant boil is maintained. The lid is placed at an angle. The deformed wool wound into a ball is placed in a basin. The one who will wind the steamed yarn takes a place in a straight line: a basin - a kettle - a winder.

You have to watch the tension of the thread: it can sag and catch fire or scorch. When the tangle is smaller, it's betterdo not pull the thread, as the ball easily pops out of the pelvis and falls into the fire. The desired pieces of yarn are unwound by hand. A perfectly even thread should come out from under the lid of the kettle. If it needs to be adjusted, you will have to wind it more slowly so that the steam effect is sufficient.

This method is only suitable for pure yarn. Suppose there was an attempt to straighten the yarn after unraveling, as they did before - with a weight. But it failed. This happens if the skeins are quite voluminous, and the drying process was fast. In this case, you can use the kettle. A ball with renewed wool should be loose, fluffy. Pulling the thread into a tight ball will cause it to stop being elastic.

The colander method

Experienced craftswomen share their findings on how to straighten yarn after unraveling. To do this, they use the principle of a double boiler, putting wool in a colander and placing it on the sides of a tall pan. It is more convenient for someone to wind wool into balls and leave it in a colander, someone winds it into skeins. In any case, it is necessary to turn the yarn over, but try to do it as carefully as possible so as not to tangle.

For a quarter of an hour, the fire is maintained quite a bit so that the boil is constant.

Interesting note: only a plastic colander will do. The metal can become so hot that the yarn will stick to it, it can even melt. Therefore, you have to constantly turn the skeins.

Threads are aligned before our eyes. When that moment comes, colanderremoved from the pan, and the skeins are hung on the doorknob, tying a small weight. If the batch for straightening is large, carefully remove the finished yarn and replace it with a new one. You can wind the aligned wool into balls only in a dry state so that mold does not start inside the ball.

Multi-cooker method

This method is suitable for those who do not want to stand over the steam and control the process. In steam mode, the skeins are in the slow cooker for about half an hour. It is very important to pour not too much water so that it does not fall into the steam basket when it boils. But too little of it is undesirable because of the possibility of boiling away.

If you do not pull the thread tightly on the toilet paper sleeve, then you can put these bobbins in the steam basket and leave them in the slow cooker. As in the case of a colander, the threads must be turned over. In order not to burn yourself, you should do this with wooden boiling tongs. They can be purchased at the hardware store.

The above methods are suitable for wool, but how to straighten knitted yarn after unraveling, because it has a curl even steeper than knitted? The iron method, in which steam production is manually regulated, is suitable for her.

Iron and microwave methods

This method is very helpful when you have to unravel part of the product and do not want to cut the thread. In this case, the loose threads are wound into a ball and, together with the unknitted product, are placed in one basin, and the ball with straight yarn, without cutting off from the product, is placed in another. They are installed in differentside of the table where the thread will be ironed.

The deformed thread is covered with a damp cloth, it is ironed with the right hand, the processed thread is pulled out from under it with the left hand. The fabric must be constantly moistened: it forms steam. The aligned thread is flat, but later recovers. The main thing in this method is not to put pressure on the iron, giving room for steam.

There is a very simple way to straighten the yarn after unraveling - in the microwave. To do this, loose balls with curly hair are placed in a plastic bag and sent to the microwave for 15 seconds.

Conclusion

Steam can cause the wool to thicken, so the finished product is not steamed. Acrylic yarn, on the other hand, loves the effect of steam. And certainly gentle washing with a special detergent cleans the fibers and literally gives the yarn a second life.

Here are just a few tips from craftswomen on how to straighten woolen yarn after unraveling. But there are probably many more.