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yarn adventure!
Aug. 26th, 2024 07:39 amThe story starts as many craft stories do, with 'so there was a Really Good Sale on this yarn.' (In this case, Lion Brand Wool-Ease WOW.) And I thought to myself 'what are you going to make with that yarn???' And I told myself 'baskets, of course!'
And I do love making baskets, so I believed myself. And then the yarn arrived, and it's great, and I thought 'but you know what I REALLY want is... another blanket!'
And the yarn is SO THICK, which is great for baskets, but I wasn't really vibing with it as a blanket-weight yarn, and I thought 'well, it IS four strands of yarn twisted together, right? sooooooo theoretically they could be untwisted!'
I started this in a haphazard sort of 'maybe this will be a meditative repetitive sort of task' way, and quickly decided it might be, but it would also take forever and I was absolutely going to get frustrated and bored faster than I was going to reach inner peace. But I thought surely the internet has a better strategy!
I wound up on this reddit thread, where the advice largely consisted of 'don't.' Reddit user littlelizardfeet posted a youtube link with the comment, "This is the best method I’ve seen for unplying," and I genuinely wondered if I was about to be rickrolled when I clicked through.
NO I WAS NOT! I WAS ABOUT TO BE AMAZED!
How to Split Yarn: DIY, by chezlin
Can confirm that this method works! I did one skein last night (luckily the skeins are only 66 yards long). First I split the four strands into two sets of two using the 'skein in bag' untwisting strategy, and I found that each of the double strands had also untwisted enough that they could be further separated just rolling them from one dowel to another. Then I could hand wind directly from the second dowel into a ball of yarn. Time consuming, but nowhere near as time consuming as my 'wing it and hope for the best' plan. And it's a great wrist and forearm workout!
(DISCLAIMER: I have not actually tried to crochet anything with those yarn balls yet, lol. The individual strands seem strong enough to me, and they're still thick enough that I'm probably going to use a size 9 hook. We'll see what happens next on this YARN ADVENTURE!)
And I do love making baskets, so I believed myself. And then the yarn arrived, and it's great, and I thought 'but you know what I REALLY want is... another blanket!'
And the yarn is SO THICK, which is great for baskets, but I wasn't really vibing with it as a blanket-weight yarn, and I thought 'well, it IS four strands of yarn twisted together, right? sooooooo theoretically they could be untwisted!'
I started this in a haphazard sort of 'maybe this will be a meditative repetitive sort of task' way, and quickly decided it might be, but it would also take forever and I was absolutely going to get frustrated and bored faster than I was going to reach inner peace. But I thought surely the internet has a better strategy!
I wound up on this reddit thread, where the advice largely consisted of 'don't.' Reddit user littlelizardfeet posted a youtube link with the comment, "This is the best method I’ve seen for unplying," and I genuinely wondered if I was about to be rickrolled when I clicked through.
NO I WAS NOT! I WAS ABOUT TO BE AMAZED!
How to Split Yarn: DIY, by chezlin
Can confirm that this method works! I did one skein last night (luckily the skeins are only 66 yards long). First I split the four strands into two sets of two using the 'skein in bag' untwisting strategy, and I found that each of the double strands had also untwisted enough that they could be further separated just rolling them from one dowel to another. Then I could hand wind directly from the second dowel into a ball of yarn. Time consuming, but nowhere near as time consuming as my 'wing it and hope for the best' plan. And it's a great wrist and forearm workout!
(DISCLAIMER: I have not actually tried to crochet anything with those yarn balls yet, lol. The individual strands seem strong enough to me, and they're still thick enough that I'm probably going to use a size 9 hook. We'll see what happens next on this YARN ADVENTURE!)
