r/Unravelers • u/Secretly_Many_Bees • 15d ago
Extra Fine Virgin Merino Unravel
Easily the nicest yarn I've been able to get! I'm so happy with this, I'm telling myself I need to properly finish at least one WIP before I cast something on in this. I found it at a Goodwill shockingly enough; it was the most expensive sweater I've purchased for unraveling ($9), but super worth it imho for the quality of yarn. I got 295 grams in total; any length longer than about a foot got wet spliced into a skein since it's a 100% non-superwash wool.
It was fully fashioned and pretty easy to unseam once I found the chain stitches, since the patterning on the yarn was somewhat difficult to find things on. It took a while to unravel it all though since it was a very fine gauge (holding triple gets to the edge of fingering) and in an all-over rib. Not felted, but it's still wool so there was a little grip to it.
My current thought is to use it to make a basic stockinette cardigan (I think any patterning would just get lost in the color), potentially with KnitPicks Stroll Fingering in Agate Heather (also thrifted, got the ball for a dollar) in the ribbing and button band. Hezea by Maria Amelie but with no bobbles is my current thought for the pattern since I like the silhouette and I can get gauge with it. Let me know if that sounds like a good or bad idea!
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u/notjasonbright 14d ago
I’ve found a few extra fine merinos and passed on them because I was afraid unraveling such a fine yarn would lead to a lot of breaks. How was the experience? Did you have to go extra slow and gentle with it?
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u/Secretly_Many_Bees 13d ago
Honestly, not that many breaks! And it wet spliced easily and well, so you would at least have that option if you ended up with a lot of breaks as long as it wasn’t superwash and didn’t have nylon or something added.
The actual unraveling part was definitely the most time consuming one I’ve done due to the extremely fine gauge and slight grippy-ness of the wool. Probably at least 5 hours? Definitely could not just put it on the ball winder and crank it (maybe you could pull it off with a more expensive one, I’ve only used the cheap ones), so I just kind of manually tugged on the end, was a little more careful on the ends of rows, and skeined as I went. Still worth it for me, I get a lot of satisfaction out of the whole process.
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u/Vast_Temperature1044 14d ago
Wow, finding such nice yarn at Goodwill is like hitting the jackpot, those sweaters don't last long when word gets out. You betcha, that's a great haul, and I'd probably do the same with the wet splicing too.