Very often, housewives are faced with an unpleasant situation: after careless washing or long wear, a knitted woolen item “fails.” Its original elegant appearance is lost, and the wool in some places sometimes becomes matted to the state of felt. You can, of course, throw away such a thing or cut it into rags. Some especially thrifty women manage to cut out fragments from such things that have lost their presentable appearance that have been preserved in their original form. And on their basis they create new things, tie them on, sew them on, etc.
But it is often simply a pity to throw away the expensive yarn from which such elegant sweaters and dresses were once knitted. And I don’t want to waste them either. In this regard, many housewives ask the question: “Is it possible to unravel an old knitted product with the least damage to the yarn. And if possible, what is the best way to do this?”
According to many experienced craftswomen, almost any thing can be unraveled.. But this procedure in some situations can take too much time and effort.
Before getting down to business, you should take a good look at the product planned for dissolution and think about whether the game is worth the candle? Or is it easier to buy new wool yarn from which to knit a similar item?
How to unravel felted wool
The process of dissolving an old knitted item begins with preparatory work.
Product preparation
Initially follows remove all additional details: patch pockets, belts, straps, buttons, etc. Then follows wash thoroughly product in warm water and dry, but not completely.
IMPORTANT! It is necessary that the product remains slightly damp! This way the threads unravel much easier, without clinging or getting tangled with each other.
Completing of the work
The next step is to determine in which direction the item was knitted: from bottom to top or vice versa.
ADVICE! If you started knitting from the bottom, then first the collar is ripped off, then the sleeves, and at the end the seams on the shoulders and sides of the product are cut.
On each knitted piece you should find the end of the woolen thread, and start unraveling the clothes from there.
There is the least amount of hassle when unraveling home knitted clothes. There will be more problems with a factory-made product: it can be knitted entirely or in parts, and then sewn together. It is possible that the factory first wove knitted fabric, and only then cut out clothing parts from it and sewed them together. In this case, all the threads will be cut, and a long skein of yarn can be obtained from them only by tying their ends.
Attention! When unraveling, the threads need to be wound into loose balls. Worn threads should be immediately separated from more or less whole threads in order to use them in subsequent knitting for different areas.
Secrets and tricks
- Tie the individual threads together with flat knots. At the same time, leave these threads the ends are at least a couple of centimeters long, so that later you can tuck them in with a crochet hook.
- New threads are added to the worn threads for strength, even in a variety of colors. The result is a melange yarn that is stronger and more elegant.
- For items made from highly tangled and very fluffy woolen threads, use the following: a means to facilitate their dissolution. Warm water mixed with hair balm or shampoo is poured into a basin. Place the knitted product there for 15–20 minutes. Then, without removing it from the water, they carefully unravel it into threads.
- When the item is too matted and this method still does not give an effect, you can try washing a woolen item in a washing machine with boiling water and cut out all fragments that are not subject to dissolution.
Straightening wool yarn after unraveling
After the dissolution is completed, housewives are faced with the following problem: how to straighten a used yarn. Really, It will be difficult to knit with wavy threads. The loops will turn out uneven, “loose”, and the entire knitted item will look very unpresentable.
Here you can use old means developed by Soviet housewives.
- To give old wool thread an improved look, it wash with shampoo or even in warm milk. After this, rinse and put to dry on a terry towel placed on the radiator.
- If washing does not help straighten the fabrics, you can twist them into loose strands and hang them on a rope. From below tie some weights to the strands, promoting their straightening.
- Another “grandmother’s” way - wind old yarn onto a rolled up magazine. After that remove the skein and place in a colander. It is placed over a boiling pan so that the boiling water does not reach the skein of thread. After about half an hour, the yarn is taken out and unwound.
- For small amounts of wool You can use a pencil instead of a magazine. In this case, the yarn wound around the pencil is not removed, and along with it inserted into the spout of a boiling kettle. Hot steam also passes through the threads, straightening them. As a result, the wool thread becomes smooth and fluffy again.