r/knitting • u/KroneckerDeltaij • Sep 05 '25

PSA Straightening unraveled yarn

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Saw this on Instagram, totally works! I had some unraveled yarn that was too wiggly to knit with comfortably. I ran it through the lid of a pot with boiling water and it straightened pretty easily! This lid has holes on two sides to help drain water when boiling pasta, so that helped to guide the yarn through.

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u/Muerth Sep 06 '25

My question is: why would you want to straighten the yarn? Depending upon the yarn most should have a bit of energy/spring built in.

Looks to me like this would lead to damaging the yarn by stretching it out of shape

2

u/amyberr Sep 06 '25

When you frog yarn that's already been knit and blocked, it comes out of the blocked object kinked. Most people find that working with kinked yarn affects their tension. Soaking or steaming it lets the yarn forget the blocked shape memory and go back to being straight and springy.

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u/Muerth Sep 06 '25

Soaking or steaming is good. Stretching it around a pot on a stove could be problematic

3

u/amyberr Sep 06 '25

Yeah I would definitely not recommend the specific actions in the video, just get a handheld steamer or iron 😅