How-To: Recycle a Sweater for Yarn

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Shortly after I learned how to knit I read about how one could recycle a sweater for the yarn. Sweet! “Cheap yarn,” I thought! I went to the Salvation Army and picked out a sweater I thought would be good for recycling. Huge, an XXXL, and 100% cotton. It was all cream colored and pretty nice. I took it home and gave it my best shot. Which failed pretty miserably at first. I wasted so much yarn that first time around. I still got enough to make into a sizable bath mat. I used the pattern from Mason Dixon Knitting (what a great knitting book).
After a whole lot of trial and error over the last three years, I’ve been able to get the recycling of sweaters down pretty well.
First you need to pick out a good sweater.


Check the size: Larger is better as it will lead more yarn of the same type and color.
Style of Sweater: A pullover is a dream to rip out. I try to stay away from cardigans because it’s just more seams to take out and sewn button holes are just bad. V-necks and vests often have double knit armholes necks that are just cut edges underneath, so I steer clear of those too.
Colors: Anything with lots of color changes is out. Intarsia is also a big pain, avoid it.
Fiber Content: My favorite is something that is a natural fiber (cotton, wool, cashmere) and has minimal synthetics in it. Look for what you would like to knit.
Gauge: Bringing a ruler to the thrift store to check the gauge if you favor worsted weight yarn (3.5 – 4.5 sts/inch) is a good idea.
Check the seams
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Serged seams have to be picked out strand by strand.
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Crocheted seams are best, because you can usually find just the right thread, pull it, and the whole seam comes out.
Sewn seams are pretty good too, you can use a seam ripper to pick out the sewn edge.
I’m just going to assume you are going to take my advice and go with a pullover, so you will start with the collar. Find the bind off edge. Don’t use scissors. Or at least, use them very carefully and with great discretion. If you nick the knit fabric, you will get all these little short tangled strands that will drive you mad.
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From there, take out the seams.
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Find the bind off edge. The yarn end will look like a little lump or a little end sticking out. It should be woven into the ribbing of the collar, go ahead and unweave it and the bind off edge should come unraveled pretty easily.
The arms are pretty straightforward, same as the collar, find the bind off edge, unweave the woven in end and wind it off. The sweater front and back are a little different. You will unbind the one shoulder, then the next, then the bottom of the neck edge.
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If you have a ball winder, this is a great time to use it. Just slip the yarn end in and wind your yarn right up.
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You now have a sweater’s worth of yarn.
The next step is winding it into a hank and washing it so it can be stored for later use. You may be able to use up a who sweater’s worth of yarn in a couple weeks, but I sure can’t!
The first step is to take all those balls of yarn and put them into hanks. This is for two reasons.
1. Washable in a hank, but not in a skein.
2. It stores better. If kept in a center pull ball it will tangle and get kinked up (like a cake center pull ball) and it will actually loose it’s elesticity from being stored under tension – no good.
You can use two chairs back to back, like this (but winding yarn around the chairs instead of off) or you can use an umbrella swift. I did the latter because I have one, so why not use it right?
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Just go around and around until you have a good amount – if you can weigh out the center pull balls and try for about 3.5 oz – 4 oz per hank.
If you can line up the end and the starting thread and tie them together in a figure eight around the hank loosely. Gather up 3 other ties (ribbon, cotton, scraps of fabric all work, just something that won’t bleed dye) and tie off the hank in 4 other places so it’s not a huge tangled mess after washing.
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For washing, you really aren’t washing at all, just soaking. I usually use some non-antibacterial soap (like a soap that doesn’t have any of that antibacterial stuff in it) like dishwashing soap.
Add your soap to the sink and fill about 2/3 full with hot water (I just turned the hot and cold taps on full blast). Toss in your yarn and push it into the water – this helps it absorb the water. Let it soak for 20 minutes or so. The longer the better. Drain off the water and fill it again. Keep rinsing until the water runs clear.
Now it’s time for some heavy lifting for that yarn.
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Just toss the hanks over your shower bar and put some cans of whatever in the loops to get it to go back into shape. Honestly, a lot of yarns won’t even need this last step. Just the soaking will loosen things up and get it back to good.

16 thoughts on “How-To: Recycle a Sweater for Yarn

  1. Tricia says:

    Lots of great info. here!

  2. deb roby says:

    You have to be very careful if you choose to pick up a sweater with a serged seam. Often these sweaters are knit in very large looms and cut (like fabric) to make the sweaters. So when you go to unravel the sweater, you end up with 18″ long strings that can’t really be used for anything.
    The sewn and crocheted edges really are wonderful.

  3. juleme says:

    I will never look @ sweaters the same way! Great idea! Thanks for sharing!
    Mlle Julie
    http://julie-bouesso.blogspot.com/

  4. Brittaney says:

    This is the best Idea ever. I have never thought of reusing yarn like that. I am a broke college student so findign cheap yarn is a favored past time, who knew it was right in my closet

  5. chuck says:

    This reminds me of a scene in the movie ‘Threads’, the English post-apocalyptic classic. In the scene a group of survivors work in a place where they unravel old clothes to recycle the thread and yarn. Just goes to show- it’s not critical what we know- the important things are those we don’t know (making cheese, spinning yarn, growing a useful garden, etc.).

  6. Elena Murphy says:

    I’ve done this a little, and purchased more on eBay. But I’ve noticed that, for a lot of this type of yarn, it becomes untwisted and starts to separate into it’s many strands of individual fiber. (I mostly use all cotton, so this is easy to have happen.) Do you have any suggestions for preventing or fixing this when it happens? I have still knit with it but the individual strands can catch on the needles more easily and then they look pulled, like when you catch your sweater on something sharp and have a little loop of yarn sticking out.

  7. lidiya says:

    to make the yarn strait again my mom used to put it through the steam in tee pot. you just have to put one end of yarn through the spout and put the pot on the stove to boil the water. When water starts to boil, just pull the yarn slowly. It will come out strait.

  8. ReThink! says:

    […] Für alle, die kein altes Fahrrad zu hause rumliegen haben. So geht’s ohne! […]

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Hi! I am an artist, author, and owner of a modern apothecary called Little Woods in Ames, Iowa.

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