Thank you so much! I always read a week would be enough for all insects!😰

☆☆☆☆☆thank you!!

what if you would use a microwave on a low setting? would it damage the yarn?

​@@bugsart9234 My understanding is that microwaves don't kill eggs. And some synthetics can melt.

What a generous gesture on your part to participate to our education in this way. Thank you truly!

Would love to see some photos of the rugs your dad made.

@@tealwingz unfortunately none remain as it was a long time ago. He died in 1971 when I was 23 (he 62). The biggest sadness of my life as we were very close, had many things in common. This is nothing to do with his rugs but his desire was to see me qualify as a midwife, like his mother who worked throughout WW2 in this profession. It was my passion also and I loved my year training. I had done my final exams and just waiting for results….. he died a matter of a few days before the results came out. Poor mummy was devastated and I was in shock. Well, I had to drag myself up and continue working and help mummy through this sad time. I passed my exam and went on to specialise in NNICU. Mum came to live with me and my husband and 1st of 3 children in 1976. A happy, family life. Dad’s rugs were lovely, stained glass window designs, foliage and flowers, geometric patterns etc. I think the last ones he made would have been in about 1965’ish. I remember that he ‘upgraded’ onto canvas, ready cut , rugs….. more modern:). Of course with the advent of fitted carpets and easier to heat homes, the need for individual rugs declined somewhat but they are making a big comeback with new kinds of flooring and wooden floorboards being brought back to life. ( oooops, too much texting chit chat but happy memories are hard to keep quiet about sometimes). I send you good wishes from Belfast NI.

So glad you shared this! Very sweet.

i'd like to see photos of that too

Je o😊

cant beat rainbow prices 😂❤️

Men are so fun when they are not crafty! 😂

Don't you just love an idiotic question? 😬

@@madwhitehare3635 I mean, I think I'd be confused too if I walked into a room and my s/o was surrounded by a ton of yarn lol

Rachel Maksy floor goblin style, looking up at your partner with a half unraveled dress in your hands surrounded by ramen looking yarn.... jep perfectly normal nothing to see here !

I was confused reading this. I thought it was instructions on how to get a mystery yarn, so I was even more confused and how you have a yarn but don’t know what it looks like

@@strxwbxrry_420 The OP probably has some yarn that they didn't know what they were made of. Maybe they bought the yarn a long time ago and didn't remember its composition, or maybe it's from a sweater whose label has been removed. Usually, if yarn burns, it is likely to be natural fibers. Otherwise, it is acrylic, polyester.

The smell tells a lot, too. The smell of burning wood or paper indicates a natural fiber. The yucky smell of burning plastic means a poly or acrylic yarn.

Love this tip! Thank you,

​@@kristinjacobsen3417 wool smells more like burning hair (it's quite pungent). the way a fibre burns also tells something of its composition. Wool does not flame, and manmade fibres (polyester, acrylic, nylon) will curl and melt before it burns, if it burns (again, depending on the fibre)

I purchased a cardigan to unravel it and at home I understood that I love it as it is, I would probably not be able to knit a similar wonderful cardigan so still wear it 😅

LOL - me too 😊

Me too, but that would also mean buying the winder and all since I don't have any of that. I do love the idea of recycling though.

same

​@@elsadavis3871you don't have to have a yarn winder at all. You can hand wind it into a ball or you can search up a youtube video how to wind it up into a center pull cake I don't have a yarn winder and I'm just fine for years now

That's interesting! I know the trick of hanging the damp skeins up on a pole, running another pole through the skeins at the bottom, then hanging a weight on each end (a can of beans in a carrier bag) to gently stretch the wool out as it dries. Steaming sounds a lot quicker!

I will use the colander idea if I do this. Thanks so much for the idea

Thank you I will try it!

I thought you meant you unraveled your mom. I know that doesn't make any sense but that's how it sounded, and I was so confused and horrified for a split second.

​@aspenisthebest 😂😂

A brilliant idea! Thanks.

Great idea to take care of my cashmere moth holes.

@@Faithingit Make sure you hold it up to the light to check for and reinforce weak spots too! Otherwise next time you clean it, more holes will appear in places where the moths nibbled but didn’t eat all the way through. And it’s much easier and neater to reinforce a weak spot than mend a hole!

Ideal engineering-to-knitting ratio

Right?! So cool!!

So I'm not crazy, that was a kitchen mixer was turned into an "unraveling machine".

The sweater you’re unraveling looks like it was a really nice one.

I hope you have filed for a patent for your machine!!! Congrats on your creativity and thanks for the video!

Agreed knitting on a budge can be pretty difficult this helps alot

WOW. I never thought about finding neat buttons this way. Thanks for posting and Thank God for your Grandma.☺

I have started to do that with bags taking off hardwear, zips, clips etc. Also buttons and yarn. Sadly yarn is getting very expensive so this is a great thing to do. Plus, and its a big plus...the search for potential gems where others may see it as just an old sweater! I'm off hunting tomorrow, wish me luck

@@chriscaine7689 Hope you got a good haul! I was once given a tin full of buttons from an old lady's house - it is full of the most beautiful buttons, especially old mother-of-pearl ones, some quite large. And a couple of tiny treasures too. So jumble sales and thrift shops might be a good source too. I also have an enormous collection of knitting needles from a similar source - sadly the old ladies who had them couldn't use them any more, and I've been able to use and gift them.

I found that knitting needles from thrift stores were very worn at the tips and did not slip thru the yarn stitches easily.

Is it possible to cover an old and rough knitting needle in a very thin coat of something like a resin (especially UV resin since it would be easier to keep it from running/dripping than an epoxy resin) to help restore the slippage of an old knitting needle? Or even sanding it very lightly, so as not to change the gauge, but still buff out those rough parts? I don’t knit myself, so I never even thought of this being an issue. That’s a really good point though! Would you say it is important for a beginner to buy brand new for their own knitting needles, to prevent any catching/other issues?

That sounds like the beginning of a book that would suck me in

Right?!

It was a very compelling video.

Wow, thrilled for you!

I worked doing a costumed show in Hampton Court Palace once. We had to give them anything potentially alive (such as wreaths or rush baskets) for them to store in their freezer for 3 weeks before the shows. I store my winter woolies in the freezer. Ironing is good too.

Which country were you in, I thought this was only done in uk after the war.?

☆ Excellent advice! Thank you!

I love all sorts of gadgets!

Or find a knitting friend and make the gadgets for them! My uncle was very engineering-minded and used to make all sort of bits and pieces, like home-made grabbers or his own radio (this was in the 30s and 40s!). The unwinding machine is really cool.

knitting/sewing etc is just engineering with fabric really, if nothing else you should learn to patch a hole do a button and stuff

As someone who’s tried both knitting and crochet, I recommend crochet for sure! I actually do it almost daily, it really got cemented as one of my main hobbies. What I like about it is you can also make stuffed animals (amigurumi) with crochet, but you can’t with knitting as far as I know, so it’s more versatile imo. Also, for me at least, much easier

I agree with the other person. I love the look of knit item but crochet is my happy place. It's a lot quicker and I feel like it's great for a beginner to get into yarn crafts 😊 I found out I do not have the patience for knitting lol.

Great idea

Me too, my Grandma would go to church and salvation army jumble sales just to get jumpers and cardi's for the wool ,she collected buttons from clothing as well.

You could also just tie the second strand to the “next” peg on the unwinder.

When I'm looking for sweaters to unravel, I skip ones that are felted. I don't like the look or texture of the yarn, and they're harder to unravel. I also skip ones that have embellishments like embroidery, beads, sequins, etc again because that makes unraveling more difficult/ not possible. If you're looking for more information, there is a forum on Ravelry called UnRavelers and a subreddit with the same name where I've found lots of good tips and helpful people!

Just to add to what's already been said, assess how fine the yarn is and whether you really want to use yarn of that weight. A lot of commercially produced sweaters are in extremely fine gauges, which you may or may not like. Either way, the finer the gauge the longer it takes to ravel a sweater and, in my experience, the more likely you are to get a lot of breaks or thin spots in the yarn. I don't really mind this since I have along term project going that uses whatever odd bits of yarn I happen to have left after finishing something else or ravel something, but it's good to keep in mind.

Speaking from my own experience, I once unraveled a sweater that was an open knit with a unique stitch pattern. I didn’t realize when I thrifted it that it was slightly felted. At unraveling there was more felting at the points where the yarn was touching (essentially where it rubbed on itself), causing more of that yarn memory as described in the video. I’ve had it wound up in a skein ever since then, but I’m now excited to try out some of the techniques mentioned to reduce yarn memory. Hopefully this helps. I haven’t actually knit with the yarn yet, but it was definitely an educational experience at the time :D

Also the yarn was at least partially a natural animal hair fiber and not 100% synthetic

Thank you so much for sharing your inspiring ideas on unraveling. I have often seen thrifted sweaters and wondered how or if the yarn could be unraveled and reused. Now that I know what to look for and how to do it, I excited about finding the right sweater.

They are hard to find these daus

Don’t folks also hang a weight from the bottom of the yarn?

@@coolcuban gillian eve has a video about this. I think it helps until you get the yarn wet, so can make it easier to work with, but would make the garment spring out of shape when washed/blocked

To straighten out the wrinkles we used to wind the wool around large’ish trays when damp, then leave to dry and then wind:).

@@christinenewell2679 ooh yeah, a niddy noddy!

I am an old lady and have done that all my life; I am glad to see I am not the only "strange one". Isn't it so joyful to source interesting and unique material? Life is a never-ending treasure hunt, culminating in hours of fun, and beautiful things at the end. (I have also used shorter wool pieces for rugs). Happy and blessed new year with lots of great finds (maybe silk or cashmere)

How does cashmere lose its desire? Is it a case of fiber ED? Lol, wondering if it needs Viagra?

@@amywhaley LOL no, cashmere has to be cleaned a certain way so whenever I wanted my sweater washed my mom had to take it to the dry-cleaners. I don’t know how and why it’s like that, but all I know is after it accidentally got thrown into the washing machine it shrunk and was way more itchy than soft. I may be wrong in my facts but the sweater still wasn’t good anymore.

@@amywhaley😂

Awesome

That's neat! Does she just card it like normal and then spin again?

Yeah.

I have an intarsia sweater that has lost its form. I was wondering if I should unravel it or not. After seeing ur post I think I just might give it a try.

I was "that child", too. Nice to meet you!!