Wednesday, January 8, 2014

WIPS: A New Knit, How do you Wash Secondhand Yarn, Capes, and a Random Factoid

I'm a newbie knitter.  Which means that I have no business trying to modify patterns or do my own thing just yet, but is that stopping me?  Of course not.  We shall see if I end up with a knit win or a knit fail.  My end goal is to make Catherine a little cape (or poncho).  I am loosely basing it on this Easy Peasy Poncho.  "Loosely" is a very key word since I want to simply use the stockinette stitch for the body and it's for a three year old.


How do you wash thrift store or second hand yarn?  I have recently come into possession of quite a bit of yarn that I'd like to clean before working with it.  Some of it is dusty and some of it is a little bit musty.  It's good quality stuff, so it's definitely worth a bit of hassle, I'm just a little unsure what to do.  I don't want to spend days, weeks, or even months trying to de-tangle a massive yarn mess!  (Some of it is on cones, which makes it even more difficult.)  There has to be a way to clean it!

Did you see the cute little capes that I helped make for my sister-in-law's wedding?  Check out the full post!


Here's a random pop culture factoid for you: Katy Perry likes to crochet.


I will be sharing this post at the following:
Frontier Dreams with Nicole
Work In Progress with Tami
Yarn Along with Ginny

6 comments:

  1. Oooooh hm. I am wracking my brain for ideas about washing that yarn but got nothing. Maybe if you wound it into smaller balls and then washed so they would dry more completely... but then you just have a bunch of small yarn segments so that's not great. ..
    Good luck with your pattern ideas!

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  2. i recently made a poncho for my almost-3-year-old. She calls it her poncho moncho. Super cute!

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  3. I've unraveled thrift store sweaters for yarn, and I washed it by skeining it in large, loose skeins. Then I just hung it to drip-dry and rewound it. I suppose you could do that?

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  4. If your yarn is not in skeins, then loosely wrap it around the back of a chair or lampshade. Tie it in sections about every 10 inches with waste yarn. Then lay those skeins in your bath in a soft rinse product. I use Euclan. After a little soak,hang them up to dry. Done!

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  5. I would second the skein idea. If you're really worried about unwinding make extra figure eight ties around the skein. If you're worried about felting only wash it in cold water. You really only need hot water for removing lanolin. Hope this helps, good luck :D.

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  6. You can also make a niddy-noddy from PVC pipe (we seem to have some in the garage all the time) and unwind the cones onto that. It'll make a large skein, then you can gently work some wool wash or baby shampoo or similar into the yarn in a sink and rinse.
    You don't want to try to wash a ball of yarn, or it's likely the center will never get clean - like washing balled up socks :)

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Thank you so much for taking the time to comment! I love reading each and every one!