How to Get Inexpensive High Quality Yarn

Buying high quality yarn for your next knitting project can get expensive. There are ways, however, that you can cut the cost of your yarn and save a lot of money on your high quality yarns for knitting. Making your precious creations by hand from high quality materials will give it a texture that is superior to less expensive synthetic yarns, and the garment will likely be warmer and longer lasting.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Locate the local thrift stores or garage sales in your area, and head right for the sweater racks in the clothing sections. Look for sweaters that are mostly solid colors and appear to be in very good shape. Avoid any sweater that has excessive wear.

2. Look at their labels. If they are made from wools like angora or cashmere, buy them.

3. 
    
   A serged seam won't work.

   Look at the seams inside the garment. If they have been chained together, instead of sewn, you will be able to unravel the garment. After you it is unraveled, you can recycle the wool used to knit. The close up shows a serged seam, which won't work for recycling yarn.

4. Start by locating the end of the seam. With your scissors, carefully cut into the chain to start releasing the seam. It may take a little time to locate just the right stitches to snip. Start with the front and back seams. Once you have found the right end of the chain to pull, it should unravel fairly quickly.

5. Once you have dissembled the sweater pieces, find a place to start unraveling the sweater. Usually, you will see a little piece of yarn poking out at the end of the shoulder row for the back or front of the sweater. If no lose yarns are showing, clip a stitch, and start pulling.

6. 
    
   Hank of Yarn

   Unravel the whole sweater this way. Create hanks of yarn, instead of balls, because you will have to dip the hanks into water. This practice helps the yarn straighten. Before you take the yarn off the book or whatever you use to create the hank, tie it in at least four places, so it doesn't get tangled up. Use colorfast contrasting yarn to do this.

7. When you have completely unwound the sweater, dip the hanks of yarn in cold water. Soak the hanks for a few minutes, and be sure to squeeze out the excess water. Lay the hanks flat on absorbent towels to dry thoroughly, and roll the hanks into balls when they have dried.

8. Enjoy your inexpensive, high quality yarn!

Tips & Warnings

• Be picky about the yarn that you use. Make sure it is high quality.
• Don't buy sweaters that have been knit from small gauge yarns that will take you forever to knit by hand.
• If you want to make a ladies' medium sized sweater, buy a man's medium or large size sweater to unwind.

Resources

• More Information

[indexercarol]

on 2/14/2009 phreed, you didn't necessarily goof. Some sweaters are knit from the bottom up, and some are knit from the top down. So if it doesn't unravel easily, just start again from the other end, once you get the pieces separated.Nice article, Jackie. I must admit that I haven't yet bothered to unravel all the yarn and soak it. Although the yarn comes off the "donor" sweater curly, I find that when I start knitting with it, the kinks disappear into the fabric. So I simply knit right off the disassembled pieces, without winding the yarn into hanks or balls.

[phreed83]

on 1/12/2009 I am in the middle of attempting this, but started unraveling at the wrong and gave up. I need to read instructions more thoroughly.