For tonight's weekly blog update, I wanted to do something a little bit different. I want to go ahead and do a tutorial for the way that I process yarn from a recycled sweater into yarn to be sold on Etsy. There is actually a considerable amount of work that goes into the yarn that I sell. It is definitely not a process that will earn someone a ton of money, when considering the time that is invested into reclaiming yarn. It is more of a process of making something new again and reducing man's footprint on this Earth.
I begin by finding an old sweater and recycling the yarn from it. I am very selective in the sweaters that I find and I make an effort to look for animal fiber content (lambs wool, angora, merino, cashmere) and cotton. As a crafter myself, I feel like it would be kind of a waste to repurpose a sweater made out of acrylic because there are so many acrylic options, whereas if you reuse the contents of a fiber that was made of animal fur, you are essentially honoring that animal one step farther than a one use item. The benefits of repurposing cotton are extensive, considering the processes into the production and harvest of cotton. I also do this because the types of yarn that you can find in a sweater cannot be found in your local yarn store and certainly are not found on the mass produce shelves at large corporate stores.
So after I have reclaimed the yarn, there are several processes that need to take place. For instance you could use the yarn as it is, without doing a second washing and without straightening the fibers. I do this sometimes because I like the effect and in the long run it just saves time. Sometimes though however people want yarn that is as close to the original yarn used as possible. This sometimes makes a small difference in the final product laying more flat or having less unwanted elasticity as the yarn sometimes holds the Kinks and twists from the original stitched garment.
If you were going to use the yarn as is, congrats you're done. If you were looking to have straighter yarn, we need to continue the process. You also need to know whether you're going to wrap the yarn into a ball, a yarn cake, or a hank. There are wonderful yarn winders that turn yarn into the most beautiful center pull yarn cakes, and this is a good idea for storing yarn, or stacking yarn. I use this method for myself and offer it as a store option. Lately however, I have been storing yarn in twisted hanks, as I have created a DIY yarn swift (Link to DIY swift tutorial!)
Regardless of the final method in which you would like to store your yarn, you will need to utilize a swift or something similar to wrap your yarn around. For me I use my yarn swift. I begin by attaching the yarn to one of the pegs in a simple two knot slip knot or secure a twist around the pegs. I then spin the swift around and around and around until I can't go any further making sure that I keep tension tight.
When I am done I secure the ends, by weaving it through the strands of yarn. I do not make a knot with the ends because the person using the yarn will want to use those ends to begin their project. After I've secured both ends I use a piece of scrap yarn, usually from the bits and pieces of sweater scrap from the unravel process.
I will wrap that small piece of yarn around the bulk of the sides so that whenever I remove the hank off of the swift, it will not get tangled or unravel. I do this three to five times, depending on the thickness of yarn.
I then gently lift the hank, and place on an over-the-door hanger until all hanks are prepared the same.
I then prepare a water bath. Typically, I fill a clean sink with room temp water. Too cold or too hot (or switching temps) can cause felting if agitated too much, so be careful. I gently push the yarn under the water and give it a good soak. Sometimes I will use a wool wash cleansing product, but this is not necessary as long as you start with clean yarn in the beginning.
After the soak, I hang the hanks to dry on hangers or shower clips with weight at the ends. I keep the weight at the bottom for a few hours to slightly stretch the yarn back to its original state. II remove the weights and allow things to airdry.I use hangers, or what i find on hand. I even used an item tied into a grocery bag today!
After a day or two, things are fully dry and twisted into hanks for sale :)
Thanks for reading and enjoy this October weather! We sure are!
