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Most of the time you won’t need to know how to wash yarn, but if you’re ripping out a project and want to reuse the yarn, it’s a good thing to know how to do.
Do You Need to Wash Yarn?
I will admit that most of the time when I rip out a project and reuse the yarn I don’t worry about washing it before I use it again.
But sometimes this results in visibly wavy stitches from the crimp that the old stitches put into the yarn.
Washing yarn before you use it again sort of resets the yarn, relaxes it back into its original form. It’s not difficult and doesn’t take a ton of time unless you’re doing a lot of yarn at once.
Preparing Yarn to Wash
Here I worked a couple of gauge swatches in this yarn (Lion Brand Mandala) but I wanted to use the yarn in my project (Joji Locatelli’s Pebble Tunic, which you can find on Ravelry) so that the color changes would be consistent across the project.
Because I was starting the knitting a day after I made the swatches, it probably would have been fine to just unravel and knit, but that would have spoiled my chance to write about how to wash yarn, now, wouldn’t it?
First you’ll need to find the bind off end of the swatch/project and pick and pull until the stitches are coming out freely.
Because I have just a small amount of yarn, I wrapped it around a book. If you have a lot of yarn to work with, you can use your umbrella swift or a couple of chairs to wind the yarn onto.
We’re making the yarn into a hank so we can wash it. Once you have the yarn all unraveled, use some light colored, non wool yarn to tie the strands into bundles in a few places around the hank. You’ll especially want to make sure the ends are secure, and then tie in one or two other places, depending on the size of the hank.
Slide the skein off the book and you’re ready to wash.
How to Wash Yarn
Now that your hank it prepared, it’s time to wash the yarn. The process is the same as if you were washing a sweater, though in this case I didn’t even use soap.
If you’re washing yarn that was once a garment, especially if it came from a thrift store or you don’t remember the last time it was washed, go ahead and throw in some of your favorite soap for washing knit or crocheted things.
I just filled my sink with lukewarm water (use a bucket if you have a bigger quantity of yarn) and let it soak about 15 minutes.
Drain or pour off the water. Rinse the soap out if needed by either filling the sink again or gently rinsing with water from the sink. Squeeze the skein gently to remove excess water.
Put the yarn on a towel and fold the towel on top of the yarn. Press gently on the towel to get out more water.
Take the skein between your hands and pull gently to help smooth out any remaining wavy bits.
Allow to dry thoroughly before winding back into balls to knit with.
If your yarn is still really kinky after washing, you can dry it under tension. I would probably do this but putting two food cans on my blocking board such that the will hold the yarn just a little stretched so it smooths out as it dries.
I tugged on mine once or twice while it was drying to straighten out the fibers and that worked fine.
Once the yarn was washed you can’t see a difference in my project between the yarn that was used and what was fresh. In the photo you can see the elongated stitches where I changed from one washed ball to the other and then the unused yarn closest to the needle.
And now you know how to wash yarn just in case you even find yourself taking a part a project and wanting to reuse the yarn!
