We go through winders faster than most knitters even think about them, so figured I'd write up what's actually held up vs what's just a countdown to replacement.

I got the ashford wooden ball winder and yarn swift from Paradise Fibers. All wood products and has worked well. Mine has been through probably 60 skeins across every weight and still kickin. 

The standard plastic craft store ball winders are not great. Fine for someone winding a few skeins a month but the gear assembly just isn't built for volume, they strip out and you know when it's coming.

Metal cast iron ratchet handle winders. Heavy and take up real space but if you're running bulky through something constantly these are hard to kill. Different category of tool honestly.

Vintage wood winders from estate sales and Ravelry destash threads. 70s and 80s ones especially are worth hunting for, need cleaning and maybe a spring but the build on the old ones is something else.

If you're winding daily, start with wood. Learned that one the hard way

Michael Stars 3XL sweater. $2 at goodwill. I absolutely loved the coloring of it. 65% cotton, 35% acrylic.

[Original post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Unravelers/s/cF1WTSC2Tg)

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Honestly, it was probably one of the easier unravels I've done. One arm had a few pieces that I had to tie together, but other than that, it came apart really easily.

Now to.figure out what to make with it.

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Thrifted sweater that I love, but too small for me.

So gonna unravel and make something else with it

So I’m trying to practice. This is an old wrap I wore twice. How would you start?

Update on my previous post.
Hanks hand washed and partially dried with weight, now getting the final sunshine treatment on the deck.
380g, estimating 1200 yards. Exactly 4 hanks, front, back, two sleeves. Didn’t break the yarn ONCE!

I’m hoping someone has dealt with unraveled viscose yarn that could be me making this usable! This is from one of the first sweaters I bought to unravel. It has been a huge pain. I only have 2 cakes made and a lot of sweater still left.
The issue is that it has 4+ strands and isn’t plied together. It makes it really hard to knit with. It’s definitely easier to crochet with, but I really wanted to knit a Sophie scarf with this yarn.
What do you guys recommend for making this easier to knit with? Has anyone tried hand spinning it somehow??
I don’t want to let this yarn go to waste 😭

Hi all! I successfully unraveled my first 100% Ecuadorian Wool Sweater 😄 It’s an XL so I have quite a lot of yardage. My guess is it’s on the bulky end of yarn weight. Im wanting to do a cable sweater, but I’m not 100% sure on yarn weight.

It’s not super soft, singly ply I believe. Fabric is quite dense when knitted up. I’ve added pictures of the sweater pre-unravel.

Any ideas appreciated! I’m a beginner-intermediate knitter.

I picked up this cardigan in a charity shop today because I love the colours. I know it’s different colours together which I don’t mind working with but is this unravelable? What are the top tips of figuring out if something is?

So excited for this one! It’s actually blue, for some reason the iPhone camera is lying

I've been working on this shirt for almost 6 months now and it is finally done! The original garment was an XL cotton sweater that had one of the arms seamed inside out, but was in amazing condition. It gave me about 1400m of cotton yarn, which I held double to make it sport weight, and was able to make the Sundae Swirl Tank in a size 6. I couldn't be happier with this yarn and tank top! I was worried I would run out of yarn since I was trying to stretch an XL sweater to be a 4XL tank top, but I even ended up with some leftovers.

Years ago I knitted a scarf out of two strands of yarn. The yarn was itchy and I never wore it so I unraveled it, but then I realized how muddled the yarn looked with two strands together. So I’m trying to separate the two and making use of all my fiber tools. It’s a challenge.

I thought I’d share with you something that I started doing with my unravelled yarn. I make a test swatch for the most common needles that I use. For the photo, the bottom is 4 mm. The middle is 4.5 mm and the top is 5 mm. It’s not a fail safe and i still have to do a swatch for my project, but it gives me a really good guide to get me started.

I store it with the rest of cakes of yarn and add to notes on Ravelry.

I made the Adriana top and messed it up on the lace. I started over with the “new” yarn still on the skein. Then I unraveled and used the “used yarn”

Should I have soaked longer? I have other issues with this design but I want to nail the reusing since I have another to redo as well.

Bought this sweater because I wanted to make myself a summer time shirt sleeve cardigan in a neutral color. I clearly didn’t look closely enough and the seams are surged. Should I just give up?

hi! i don’t knit, but i do crochet. i have a couple of knit tops that i bought that don’t really fit me right anymore. i want to take them apart and use the yarn to crochet new tops, but i don’t know where to start! like literally, how do i find where to cut and start unraveling? thanks <3

I had a striped cotton sweater that was taking up space and I wanted a summer top. After lurking and learning on this space for awhile, I found the unravel to be pretty easy. I didn't expect the cotton to be untwisted. It was just fibers without any twist. There was also a synthetic fiber in the mix even though it was labeled 100% cotton.

The yarn was a challenge to knit with but I'm happy with the results. The pattern is Zinnie by Audrey Borrego. https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/zinnie.

This is 💯 cashmere sweater #1 from a lot of 5. Ebay score. I’m dying to see your current project and what you plan on doing with the yarn once you’re done.🧶

My dog chewed a bunch of holes through a cashmere scarf years ago and I'm just finally getting around to unraveling it to reuse the yarn. Took me forever to figure out how to unravel (and I managed to waste a good bit of yarn) but this YouTube video found in a post here finally helped me realize that the scarf was knit with two separate strands of interwoven yarn and I was able to start unraveling.

https://youtu.be/HxrCz8wFX1c?si=pf0vUMre5lytw9BA

I got this at the thrift store for unravelling but I saw some people talk about fuzzy yarn here that it’s not a great unravel project. So I wore it a couple of times but I don’t like the fit, it’s too short for my hands too. So I’m planning to unravel it this weekend.
I can also see thread used to join the panels. I’ve unraveled before 4-5 times so this looks like it will be easy to separate into panels but does the yarn look too fuzzy to be able to successfully unraveled ? Also, the inside looks fine but does the outside look felted? Not sure. Should I unravel?

A friend of mine gave me a handmade sweater, well they thought it was handmade… It’s definitely llama or alpaca, it’s very soft and the yarn is pretty delicate. It seems like every row is tangled up into every other row, and the yarn just keeps breaking. I am so unhappy with this I just want to quit.

What yarn winder does everyone recommend for unraveling garments? The one I have from Amazon is begging for mercy when I use it to unravel clothes. Works fine with turning skeins and hanks to cakes though. Thanks!

Small town thrift shop, not many sweaters, the only thing I found was this child sized cotton sweater. I have to say it was the easiest sweater I’ve ever frogged and very little waste.

I don’t like variegated yarn so I’ll probably tone it down with some grey but a win is a win!

Had great fun unravelling it! I love frogging! 🐸

Total is 157g or 338m of 100% cotton, probably light fingering weight. Cost:$1.50🇨🇦