• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Stickytapeandstring

Created with WordPress managed by 1&1

  • Craft projects
    • craft business tips
    • craft blog
    • Crochet patterns
    • Upcycling
    • craft with kids
  • Blogging
    • New to blogging
    • Blog diary
  • Bullet Journal
  • About me
  • Welcome!!

Upcycling

Yarn Salvage #3 – how best to use the yarn

April 27, 2019 by Annie Leave a Comment

Yarn recycling is fun, rewarding and good for the planet! In my two earlier posts I gave you tips on garment selection and salvage. Yarn Salvage #3 – How best to use the yarn….. will give more advice on how to process the yarn you collect and the best way to use the yarn. You can see the earlier posts here Yarn Salvage Tips #1 and Yarn Salvage Tips #2

There are a number of different aspects to yarn that influence how you treat it and the type of project it is suited to. The three main aspects I will cover here are yarn weight, ply and content.

Yarn Weight – wpi

This is an important aspect of the yarn when it comes to determining the type of project you can use the yarn for. We measure Yarn Weight in ‘wraps per inch’. You can pay a lot of money for a gadget that works out the wpi for any yarn. It really isn’t difficult though and in my view not worth spending hard earned cash on! Wraps per inch is the number strands of yarn that will fit into one inch. The strands should sit next to each other comfortably. There should be no overlap or stretch.

To make your own gadget to measure wpi you need a pen, ruler and piece of wood – ideally something rounded like a broom handle. We use an old clothes peg 🙂

Take the ruler and place two marks on the wood one inch apart. Draw lines around the wood at the places you have marked. You are already ready to use the tool!

Take the yarn you want to assess and wrap it around the tool. Place the first strand of yarn just inside the first mark you made. Wind the yarn round the tool without stretching the yarn. Each strand of yarn should sit alongside the previous strand with no overlap. When the yarn wrapped around the tool reaches the second mark, stop winding. Count the number of wraps of yarn between the two markers. This is your wraps per inch for the yarn or wpi.

Yarn Ply

Ply is the number of individual strands that make up a yarn. Sometimes the strands are twisted so that the yarn handles as one strand. Sometimes you unravel a garment and find that the yarn is made up of several strands that have not been twisted. You can choose whether to separate out the strands or keep the yarn as multi-strand. What you choose to do will depend on the type of yarn and the type of project you want to use it for. I keep detailed records of recovered yarn. I write down the wpi and where the strands are not twisted, also note the ply. This gives me good information when planning projects.

Yarn content

The easiest way to identify the yarn content is to take the information from the garment label when you recover the yarn. I try to select garments with an element of natural fibre. When combining yarn in a project I try to match fibre types. This is not always possible. Yarn content will impact the way the yarn changes over time. It will also have a big impact on the way the yarn washes. If you have a project made from recycled yarn always wash on a wool/cool setting and dry flat. This is particularly important when combining more than one salvaged yarn.

Unravelled yarn often has a lot of ‘kinks’. When you crochet or knit with the yarn these kinks will disappear. If they bother you you can try to reduce them. I say ‘try’ because this method will produce varied results according to the yarn composition. The lower the percentage of natural fibre the less effective this method will be.

Flattening kinks in yarn containing natural fibres

Firstly, turn the yarn into hanks rather than balls. There are expensive machines that make this job easier but we are trying to save cash! You can wind yarn into hanks using your own arm winding the yarn between the base of your thumb and elbow. You can also use the back of a chair or enlist the help of a small human! I find small humans to be helpful and compliant until they hit teenage years. Teenagers are less than inspired by the idea of helping wind yarn 🙂

Once the yarn is in hanks soak them in warm water – NOT HOT (unless you want to end up with felt). You can add wool washing liquid or powder. The kinks should begin to relax in the water. You may have to leave the yarn soaking for a few hours. Rinse and dry the yarn either flat on a towel or hanging over a bath. Do not squeeze or ring out the yarn. Finally you will need to reball the yarn for use.

Using the recycled yarn

Now you have added all this recycled yarn to your stash what will you make? It is possible to use the yarn recovered from one garment to make another garment. However, it is likely that during the recovery process some yarn will have been lost. This means that you might need to top up the quantity of yarn from one garment in order to have enough to make another.

You can top up the recovered yarn with yarn from your stash. You could buy some yarn to contrast or compliment the recovered yarn. Or you could combine different yarns that you have recovered into one project.

Most patterns are designed for yarn of a particular weight or wpi as above. One of the latest patterns I wrote was for a super chunky yarn worked up on a 9mm hook. I wanted something that would grow and complete quickly! I decided to use this pattern as an example of how I work with recycled yarn.

Much of the yarn I salvage has a high wpi. This is because most yarn used in the industrial manufacture of garments is lightweight around 14 wpi. I prefer to work with a heavier yarn, aran or chunky weight around 7 or 8 wpi. However, you can combine the yarns you recover to produce a heavier weight yarn. This is what I did in my latest project. The resulting yarn can look startling different to its component parts.

Hearts and Stripes Recycled Blanket

Here is my recycled project. The pattern is one I designed myself and is available for free here. The yarns I used are different ply and composition but worked up very easily as one yarn. Remember to test the wpi of your combined yarn before starting the project. I expected the crochet to be difficult and that the yarn would split but this was not the case. Finishing off the ends was the only part that I found more difficult but with a little extra patience and care even that was not too much of a challenge. Here are the recycled yarns I started with.

Salvaged yarn

I combined the recycled yarn with some super chunky white yarn from my stash. This was left over from a previous project. As you can see the finished result looks quite different to the four yarns that went into the work.

yarn salvage - how best to use the yarn

There are many ways to choose yarn for your projects. For me, there is nothing better than laying out all the balls of recovered yarn on the floor and playing with the colour combinations. This is how I get inspiration for my next project. Group the yarn by colour and see what works! Happy recycling!!

Annie 🙂

Filed Under: Uncategorized, Upcycling Tagged With: crochet blanket, recycling, recycling yarn, super chunky yarn, yarn, yarn combining, yarn salvage

Yarn Salvage #2 – more tips

September 8, 2018 by Annie Leave a Comment

Hello, In my last post I promised you another set of tips and ‘how to points’ on yarn salvage. The project is going very well here and I am drowning a bit in yarn!

With Autumn coming on, I have also started looking at the list of people I would like to make Christmas and Birthday presents for!   I plan to use some of this new yarn stash to create beautiful things for my friends and family.   I will post a list pattern links when I have it together but as a start point I am making my striped scarf up with some of the greens and greys.

Here is a link to the Striped Scarf pattern and you can see the scarf above in pink and in blue. This type of pattern is ideal for using recycled yarn as you can vary the design according to the yarn you have available and it is easier to mix yarn weights.   Anyway – I promised you tips….. here goes.   The last set of tips focussed on garment selection.  This list is more about what to do when you get your garments home and you need to do the unravelling!   If you missed the first set of tips you can see them here – Yarn Salvage #1

Yarn Salvage Tips#2 – where to start unravelling

1. Firstly spend some time getting to know the garment.   Look at every seam and pull the two joined edges as far apart as possible.   There should be a set of horizontal stitches visible between the two pieces of the garment.   If you are lucky these stitches will be in a slightly different thread but this is not always the case.

2. Side and sleeve seams are the easiest place to start.   Snip through 3 or 4 of those horizontal joining stitches, at one end of the seam but if you’ve chosen the bottom edge, avoid the welt/rib/border.  Instead, start a little higher up.

3. As well as the hole you have created by snipping the horizontal stitches you should be able to see a cut end of yarn.   Pull on this and it might magically unravel the whole seam.   If it doesn’t, go to the other end of the same seam and try again.

4. Most seams will unravel as described above if you persevere long enough.   Beware of fluffy yarns however.   Fluffy yarns need a lot of pulling and sometimes scissor work to prise them apart.

5. If all else fails, it might be necessary to snip all horizontal stitches but this is time taking and risky.    It is very easy to snip part of the knitting which would mean you end up with smaller balls of recovered yarn and more ends to deal with in your project!

6. Sometimes the tops of sleeves and neck areas, particularly on fronts of jumpers, call for the use of scissors.   There is no point in spending ages unpicking these areas just to finish up with very short lengths of yarn.    Just cut across the knitting so that you have a reasonably long raw edge to start from.

7. Welts/ribs/borders and underarm seam intersections on some garments can be huge time wasting areas to deal with.   No matter how long you take or how careful you are, there will be cuts to the knitting in those areas.   Consider just cutting those nasty lumpy seams away with out even trying to unravel them.

8. Beware the double ball knitting demon!!   There are some commercial machines that have two balls of yarn on the go in production.    The balls are used to knit alternate rows.   This means when you are unravelling you will have two balls of yarn to wind – swapping between them every row.    You cannot know this before you unravel, at least we haven’t worked out a way to detect it yet…. but be prepared to deal with it if it occurs.

9. Take a view on whether to unravel ribbing at the neck and elsewhere.   Sometimes it is worth the effort, sometimes not.

10. Finally, it is worth saving every scrap of cut away area or rib/welt/border until you have finished the project you are using the yarn for.    You never know whether you will run out of yarn and just need a tiny bit more.  If this happens, all the bits that were too time consuming to deal with suddenly become worthwhile!!

And that is it for now.    I have a final post in this series for you next week.   In that post I will cover what we do with the yarn we recover in order to prepare it for re-use.

Happy recycling!

Annie 🙂

Filed Under: Craft projects, Upcycling Tagged With: crochet, Free pattern, gift idea, handmade, recycling yarn, scarf, stash, yarn

Yarn salvage

September 2, 2018 by Annie Leave a Comment

Hello, I am here to share my latest obsession!    Getting lots of yarn for very little money through yarn salvage and recycling…….. what’s not to like?!

This project started with me worrying about the cost of the yarn I am using to develop projects and patterns for the blog.   Even using cheaper yarns like my well loved Drops Paris, the cost mounts up when you are making a large blanket.   Crochet seems to ‘eat’ far more yarn than knitting, or is that just me?

I gave some thought to sources of cheap yarn and began to wonder about Charity shops/Thrift stores and yarn salvage.  

Yarn Salvage and recycle!

After a bit of research I can tell you that woollen/knitted garments typically cost between £2 and £5 in these outlets.   If the yarn could be salvaged that would be quite a lot of yarn for a very low cost.   One problem is that it is the wrong season currently with warmer temperatures shops are not selling much knitwear but we still managed to find some candidate garments.

I say we because I decided to rope my Mum into this project.   I remember from my childhood that she really enjoys undoing knots and taffles.   Turns out Mum also quite likes rummaging through Charity/Thrift shops for bargain items of knitwear!   A knitter herself for many years Mum understands the construction of garments.   This is a big help when choosing pieces for yarn salvage.

We are now some way into our project.    Mum has sourced some 15 garments and we have learned which types work best and the types to avoid.    Here are our tips for garment selection.

TOP TIPS for Garment Selection when Recycling yarn

1. Look at the washing label – that gives you the yarn type, % composition wool, acrylic etc.  This info is normally on the reverse of the label

2. Inspect the seams.  The shoulders will normally be overlocked (zigzag stitching over both joined edges on the inside of the seam).   This isn’t a problem but if you see this type of seam elsewhere on the garment this usually means the knitted fabric has been cut and joined which means there will be a break in the yarn on every row.   This gives very short lengths of yarn.   Avoid!

3. Unless you fall in love with a particular yarn, go for jumpers rather than jackets/cardigans.  Jumpers are normally easier to unpick.   Jackets and cardigans can be very difficult to deal with where the front band is attached and again are sometimes cut, resulting in short lengths of yarn.

4. Look at the texture.   Unravelling thicker yarn is generally easier than the finer ones.

5. Large garments often cost the same as smaller ones as pricing tends to be per garment.   The larger the garment the greater the quantity of yarn you can recover!

Read on for more tips on garment selection

6. Charity shops are seasonal.   Many will not display knitted garments in summer but it is always worth a look.   Lighter weight items will probably still be available.

7. One you have a stock, bear in mind the colours and weight of your yarns – look for items you can combine.

8. Shops have sales.    Even though these outlets are incredibly cheap to start with there are times when they discount.   There are also sometimes discount rails where items have been in store for a time and not sold.   Keep an eye out for sales!

9. Make sure you are looking in the right kind of shop.   Shops selling vintage or retro garments will be selecting stock based on the style and age of the garment and will be charging a much higher price than the average Charity Store.

10. Do not be put off by the style of a garment.   You will not be wearing it!  An item that is not attracting buyers in its current form might be made of very attractive yarn!

Recovering the yarn

We also learnt how best to recycle the yarn and to work out what to do with the yarn we recovered.   I will cover these in a later post.

The first few garments we bought are shown in the photos below.    When you start to take the garments apart you have to be very careful not to snip the yarn.   However, if you do snip the yarn in error it just gives shorter lengths or smaller balls which can still be used – depending on the project you select.

first garment for yarn salvage project
second garment for yarn salvage project
third garment for yarn salvage project

Yarn Salvage – Unpicking the garments

The first garment we unpicked was the flecked cardigan.   This one gave me the inspiration for a blanket project.    We picked creams and browns to go with it and unpicked the other two garments shown.    These photos show the quantity of balled yarn we ended up with.   More than 1kg of yarn for £6, not bad eh? On the subject of money a bit of small print I am obliged to share. Adverts and banners in this post are affiliate links. If you click on them I might receive a small payment which supports my blog and allows me to keep posting. Right – on to the interesting stuff. CHEAP YARN and free patterns!!

yarn salvage project - recycled yarn
yarn salvage project more recycled yarn
recycled yarn from yarn salvage project

The yarn is more or less Aran weight.   I will include more on how to identify the weight in the next post.   I used to have an obsession with knitting cabled sweaters so have a lot of oddments of plain aran yarn in my stash.    Some of the oddments were in similar colours to the yellow/orange flecks in the ‘inspiration’ yarn.   I put these oddments from my stash with the salvaged yarn to give me a large enough quantity to produce a blanket.

Yarn Salvage – Using the recycled yarn!

Next in my yarn salvage project, I came up with a block pattern that I can scale up and down to make three different sizes of square.   The pattern(s) are shown at the bottom of the post.    These are some of the blocks I have completed so far.

sample squares from salvaged yarn

Finally, turning this blanket into a whole family project, my husband designed a layout for the blocks.

blanket layout of different sizes of recycled yarn squares

Here are the patterns I am using for the three sizes of block.  I might need to amend these when it comes to stitching up if the weights of the yarn result in size differences.   I will either block them to the correct size or add additional rows to increase the size!   The change of colour instruction in these patterns shows you how I am working – you can change colour whenever you like or make the blocks solid colour.   It really depends on the yarn you have from your own yarn salvage project.

Instructions in UK terms – please SCROLL DOWN for US terms

Large Square – UK terms

1st round – make a magic loop, 2Ch, 9Dc slip stitch to join to the start point
2nd round – Ch3, 2Tr in each stitch, Tr, slip stitch to join to the start point
Change colour
3rd round – Ch2, Dc in each stitch (19), slip stitch to join to the start point
4th round – Ch3, 2xTr cluster, Ch1, (3Tr cluster Ch1)x 19. Slip stitch to join to the start point
5th round – Ch2, 3HTr, (2Tr, DTr, chain 3, DTr, 2Tr, 4HTr) x 3, 2Tr, DTr, chain 3, DTr, 2Tr, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
6th round – Ch2, Htr round, 2HTr, 1Ch 2HTr, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
7th round – Ch2, Tr round 2Tr, 1Ch, 2Tr in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
8th round – Ch2, Htr round, 2HTr 1Ch 2HTr, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
9th round – Ch2, Tr round 2Tr, 1Ch, 2Tr in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
10th round – Ch2, Htr round, 2HTr, 1Ch, HTr, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
11th round – Ch2, Tr round 2Tr, 1Ch, 2Tr in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
12th round – Ch2, Htr round, 2HTr, 1Ch, 2HTr, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
13th round – Ch2, Tr round 2Tr, 1Ch, 2Tr in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
14th round – Ch2, Htr round, 2HTr, 1Ch, 2HTr, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
15th round – Ch2, Tr round 2Tr, 1Ch, 2Tr in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
16th round – Ch2, Htr round, 2HTr, 1Ch, 2HTr, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
17th round – Ch2, Htr round, 2HTr, 1Ch, 2HTr, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.

Medium sized square – UK terms

1st round – Make a magic loop, 2Ch, 9Dc slip stitch to join to the start point
2nd round – Ch3, 2Tr in each stitch, Tr, slip stitch to join to the start point
Change colour
3rd round – Ch2, Dc in each stitch (19), slip stitch to join to the start point
4th round – Ch3, 2xTr cluster, Ch1, (3Tr cluster Ch1)x 19. Slip stitch to join to the start point.
5th round – Ch2, 3HTr, (2Tr, DTr, chain 3, DTr, 2Tr, 4HTr) x 3, 2Tr, DTr, chain 3, DTr, 2Tr, slip stitch to join to the start point.
6th round – Ch2, Htr round, 2HTr, 1Ch, 2HTr, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
7th round – Ch2, Htr round, 2HTr, 1Ch, 2HTr, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
8th round – Ch2, Tr round 2Tr, 1Ch, 2Tr in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
9th round – Ch2, Htr round, 2HTr, 1Ch, 2HTr, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.

Small Square – UK terms

1st round – Make a magic loop, 3Ch, 15Tr, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
2nd round – Ch3, 2xTr cluster, Ch1, (3Tr cluster Ch1)x 15, slip stitch to join to the start point.
3rd round – Ch2, HTr, (2Tr, DTr, Ch3, DTr, 2Tr, 2HTr,) x 3,  2Tr, DTr, Ch3, DTr, 2Tr, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
4th round – Ch2 work Dc along each side, 2Dc, 2Ch, 2Dc in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.

Instructions in US terms – please SCROLL UP for UK terms

Large Square – US terms

1st round – make a magic loop, 2Ch, 9Sc slip stitch to join to the start point
2nd round – Ch3, 2Dc in each stitch, Dc, slip stitch to join to the start point
Change Colour
3rd round – Ch2, Sc in each stitch (19), slip stitch to join to the start point
4th round – Ch3, 2xDc cluster, ch1, (3Dc cluster ch1)x 19. Slip stitch to join to the start point
5th round – Ch2, 3Hdc, (2Dc, Tr, chain 3, Tr, 2Dc, 4Hdc) x 3, 2Dc, Tr, chain 3, Tr, 2Dc, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
6th round – Ch2, HDc round, 2HDc 1ch 2HDc, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
7th round – Ch2, Dc round 2Dc, 1ch, 2Dc in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
8th round – Ch2, HDc round, 2HDc 1ch 2HDc, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
9th round – Ch2, Dc round 2Dc, 1ch, 2Dc in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
10th round – Ch2, HDc round, 2HDc 1Ch 2HDc, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
11th round – Ch2, Dc round 2Dc, 1ch, 2Dc in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
12th round – Ch2, HDc round, 2HDc 1Ch 2HDc, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
13th round – Ch2, Dc round 2Dc, 1ch, 2Dc in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
14th round – Ch2, HDc round, 2HDc 1Ch 2HDc, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
15th round – Ch2, Dc round 2Dc, 1ch, 2Dc in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
16th round – Ch2, HDc round, 2HDc 1Ch 2HDc, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
17th round – Ch2, HDc round, 2HDc 1Ch 2HDc, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.

Medium sized square – US terms

1st round – Make a magic loop, 2Ch, 9Sc slip stitch to join to the start point
2nd round – Ch3, 2Dc in each stitch, Dc, slip stitch to join to the start point
Change colour
3rd round – Ch2, Sc in each stitch (19), slip stitch to join to the start point
4th round – Ch3, 2xDc cluster, ch1, (3Dc cluster Ch1)x 19. Slip stitch to join to the start point.
5th round – Ch2, 3HDc, (2Dc, Tr, chain 3, Tr, 2Dc, 4HDc) x 3, 2Dc, Tr, chain 3, Tr, 2Dc, slip stitch to join to the start point.
6th round – Ch2, HDc round, 2HDc, 1Ch, 2HDc, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
7th round – Ch2, HDc round, 2HDc, 1Ch, 2HDc, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
8th round – Ch2, Dc round 2Dc, 1Ch, 2Dc in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.
9th round – Ch2, HDc round, 2HDc, 1Ch, 2HDc, in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.

 

Small Square – US terms

 

1st round – Make a magic loop, 3Ch, 15Dc, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
2nd round – Ch3, 2xDc cluster, Ch1, (3Dc cluster Ch1)x 15, slip stitch to join to the start point.
3rd round – Ch2, HDc, (2Dc, Tr, Ch3, Tr, 2Dc, 2HDc,) x 3,  2Dc, Tr, ch3, Tr, 2Dc, slip stitch to join to the start point.
Change colour
4th round – Ch2 work Sc along each side, 2Sc, 2Ch, 2Sc in each corner, slip stitch to join to the start point.

And that is it from me.   I hope you enjoy rooting around for knit wear to recycle and yarn salvage!   Please share your stories.    Happy crocheting!

Annie 🙂

Filed Under: Craft projects, Upcycling Tagged With: blankets, crochet, crochet blocks, design, Free pattern, frugal, handmade, recycling, salvage, stash buster, stash busting, yarn

Footer

Newsletter

Copyright © 2021 · Genesis Sample on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in