by Kimberly Napier

Created on: January 02, 2011

At times, the cost of yarn can make creating a sweater, out of higher quality yarn, prohibitive. Or perhaps, the thoughts of someone throwing out a sweater made of a yarn that you would love to work with almost brings tears to the eyes.  Either way, there is a way around these problems and many other, taking a sweater or afghan and recycle the yarn.

This is not a difficult process if you know what to look for and the steps in doing it.

First, is finding a suitable sweater or afghan from which to harvest the yarn.  Some wonderful sources may be thrift stores, yard or garage sales or even in your own closets.  As you are looking at the items, it is important to feel the fabric and make sure that it is one that would feel good to work with.  If the feel of the yarn is scratchy or stiff in the item that is being looked at, it will probably feel the same way in whatever it is being made.  Make sure to stay away from obviously worn sweaters.  If the yarn looks ratty in the old sweater it will look ratty in any new item.  As far as felted items,  felted yarn is almost impossible to unravel, so it best to pass them by.  If there are stains or a small hole, the yarn can still be used to that point and then join the good yarn together with a felt join and it will never be known that these problems were a part of the original item.  Stay away from moth-eaten items.  They could contaminate the rest of your stash, plus the moths may have weakened the yarn in other places.

The next thing to look for is the seams.  Are the seams created by having a thread or yarn go over the edge of the item?  If so, it was probably made by a factory that cut the knitted material out of a large square, like a dress fabric.  When unraveling this, you would end up with many small lengths of yarn.  If the seams are crocheted together or hand-sewn then they should be able to be harvested more easily.  If the factory-type of stitching is only at the shoulder, then it will still harvest long lengths of  yarn, so in that case, go ahead and use that item.

Cardigans can offer their own difficulties.  They need to be checked to see if the buttonhole was cut out and stitches around.  If so, then that part of the cardigan would only yield small lengths of yarn.  However, the rest of the cardigan could be used.

DECONSTRUCTION
The first step would be to check the gauge of the yarn.  Measure with a ruler then

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>