It is not always possible to purchase the right yarn. Stops the price, the lack of the necessary color or texture. It happens that you need very few threads to lengthen the sleeves of a children's sweater or repair torn areas on the elbows. Once, socks were knitted from this yarn, but they have long lost their appearance.
No problem! Many craftswomen adapted to use the most unpretentious old things, dismissing them and giving yarn a new life. But after such an operation, the threads become curly and naughty. How to straighten the yarn after opening, without resorting to pulling the thread in tight balls and maintaining its volume? And is it worth it to knit from used wool?
Mistakes beginner knitters
When knitting just started to take hold and has not yet become a favorite hobby, the attitude to yarn for beginners is impractical. They can throw hanks of little interest in color, cheap acrylic threads, and after opening the product - torn short residues. An experienced knitter neatly stores the balls that are not yet needed, so that later they can find suitable threads for embroidering a flower or a funny face.
The same thing happens with yarn already obtained by dissolving an old product. A mountain of curly threads, mostly short, suggests the immediate sending of this disgrace to the trash. However, if you take the matter seriously, you can prepare the material for knitting. All you need to know is how to straighten the yarn after it has opened.
But why is this needed? Experience suggests that the most skilled craftswomen can not avoid the unevenness of the loops, using even not very deformed yarn. In the case when a pattern will be created, it will not allow to execute it smoothly. And, in the end, after the first wash, the product will stretch.
Another omission of newcomers is excessive savings. For things “on the way out” - dresses, coats, shawls - they only take new yarn. You can save on home sweaters, leggings, socks and all sorts of little things.
Properties of yarn fibers
The structure of the fibers determines such a method of updating the threads as wet air treatment. Feeding with steam, the strands straighten and restore a volume that will not disappear after drying. Some, knowing this, try to knit the product with deformed threads, so that by steaming to even out the appearance later. Unfortunately, this does not happen: the loops during operation turn out to be of different sizes, which becomes visible after steaming.
Exposure to steam can cause the yarn to “sit down”. Therefore, its temperature should not be too high. Acrylic thread is not threatened.
Someone can even wash the finished product and dry it by stretching it on the board to align the picture. This is a good method for shawls and scarves, but they are usually knitted from new threads. For a sweater, such a strategy can lead to a skew of the gate, armhole, different sleeves. Who will like this transformation? And there is nothing left but to straighten the yarn after opening.
Grandma's method
To make the thread even, there is an old way. First, the wool is wound into skeins. To do this, use the hands of a cavalier, and for lack of it - 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 rewind the wool, like a climber safety rope, using their own elbow.
It is important to monitor the tension of the thread - it should not be overtightened. Do not make skeins too voluminous, it is better to divide all the yarn into several parts. Before removing the yarn from the spacers, it is bandaged with white thread in four places. It is impossible to tighten the thread strongly - it will pull the yarn fibers with an increase in its volume. Too little tightening will cause the threads to become entangled during washing.
After that, skeins are washed in shampoo or wool. How to straighten the yarn after opening and washing, so that it is completely straightened, not compressed during drying? It is necessary to suspend a weight to straighten the skein. It is convenient to pass a mop through the skeins and place its ends on the backs of two chairs. Water will drain from the yarn, a basin should be substituted. An interesting method is known for hanging a heavy ceramic mug instead of a load. It is fastened with a thread by the handle, romantic and funny.
The less yarn was wound in 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 heating battery - this will lead to a different thread size. With the current rhythm of life, many do not want to wait until the skeins have dried, and invent new methods.
Kettle Method
The idea of using, instead of a long procedure, pulling the thread under steam determined the so-called teapot method. Its essence is as follows: two glasses of water are poured into a classic enameled kettle. Its level should not reach the nozzle, where there are holes. A woolen thread extends from the outside into the kettle through the spout and exits through a wide hole with a lid. However, the kettle can be successfully replaced with a pan with a hole for steam in the lid, as shown in the video.
The kettle is put on fire and 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 in a ball is placed in a basin. The one who will wind the steamed yarn takes a place on a straight line: a basin - a kettle - a winder.
We have to monitor the tension of the thread: it can sag and catch fire or burn. When the ball is reduced, it is better not to pull the thread, since the ball easily jumps out of the pelvis and enters the fire. The desired pieces of yarn are unwound by hand. A perfectly flat thread should come out from under the lid of the kettle. If it needs to be improved, it will be necessary to wind slower so that the steam effect is sufficient.
This method is acceptable only for pure yarn. Let's say there was an attempt to straighten the yarn after opening, as was done before - with a weight. But that failed. This happens if skeins are quite voluminous, and the drying process was fast. In this case, you can use a kettle. A ball with updated hair should be loose, fluffy. Dragging the thread into a tight ball will cause it to cease to be elastic.
Colander Method
Experienced craftswomen share their findings on how to straighten the yarn after the product opens. To do this, they use the principle of a double boiler, putting the wool in a colander and placing it on the sides of a high pan. It is more convenient for someone to wind the wool in balls and leave it in a colander, someone winds it in 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 confuse.
For a quarter of an hour, the fire is kept quite a bit so that the boil is constant.
An interesting note: a colander will only fit plastic. The metal can become so hot that the yarn will stick to it, it can even melt. Therefore, skeins have to be turned over constantly.
The threads are aligned in the eyes. When this moment comes, the colander is removed from the pan, and the skeins are hung on the doorknob, tying a weight. If the lot for straightening is large, carefully take out the finished yarn and replace it with a new one. It is possible to reel the lined wool into balls only in a dry state so that mold does not start inside the ball.
Multicooker Method
This method is suitable for those who do not want to stand above the steam and control the process. In steam mode, 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 get into the steam basket when boiling. But too small a quantity is undesirable due to the possibility of boiling.
If you do not pull the thread tightly onto the toilet paper sleeve, then you can put these bobbins in the steam basket and leave them in the slow cooker. As with the colander, the threads need to be turned over. In order not to burn yourself, you should do this with wooden tongs for boiling. They can be purchased at the hardware store.
The above methods are suitable for wool, but how to straighten the knitted yarn after opening, because it has a curl even steeper than knitted? For her, the iron method is suitable, in which the production of steam is manually regulated.
Iron and microwave methods
This method helps a lot when you have to dissolve 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 untied product, are placed in one basin, and the ball with straight yarn, without cutting from the product, in another. They are installed on opposite sides of the table on which the thread will be ironed.
The deformed thread is covered with a damp cloth, it is ironed with the right hand, and 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 restores the look. 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 it is opened - in the microwave. To do this, loose glomeruli with curly hair are placed in a plastic bag and sent to the microwave for 15 seconds.
Conclusion
Steam can cause the wool to compact, so the product is not steamed when finished. Acrylic yarn, on the contrary, loves the effect of steam. And certainly a gentle wash with a special product cleanses the fibers and literally gives the yarn a second life.
Here are just a few tips from the craftswomen on how to straighten wool yarn after opening. But there certainly are many more.