Splitting (unspinning) Yarn thinner yarn for utility or color work

Two 2-ply splits from
a four-ply yarn

Thinner yarn in matching color is always useful to hem a sweater, sew down a neck or seam with less bulk. Color combos of thinner yarns create beautiful segues and ombrés.

Both these tricks require thinner yarns, and that's today's post: harvesting thinner strands of yarn by UN-spinning. It isn't hard, but a few tricks with weight and gravity help tame kinking and tangling, those enemies of splitting.

Yarn is spun by twisting together strands of fiber. A single strand of twisted yarn is a "ply." Many popular yarns are called "two-ply" or "four-ply" because they are made of two- or four plies twisted together. All this twisting--first each ply separately, then all the plies together--stores a great deal of energy in the yarn, energy we have to get rid of for the unplied yarn to lay smooth.

Geek Note:  This linked photo shows some plied yarns are made of other plied yarns. Further, number of plies does not correlate to the overall thickness of the yarn, because any one ply can be thick or thin.)  

Some silky yarns let you simply pull plies out, but sticky wools need help. This post shows splitting a sticky 4-ply wool into two thinner 2-ply lengths.This same process can be used to split out single plies, as well. Weights are used to subtract twist, an exactly opposite process to spinning, where a weighted drop spindle adds twist. 

Materials: 

--A length of yarn. If this length is your height or less, work directly with the two ends. If this length is longer than you are tall, maybe make the yarn up into a mini-hank, as shown in this post. There is also a video of how to do this. This kind of mini-hank easily center-pulls, but does not unwrap from the tail end. Alternatively, simply snap a rubber band around a small butterfly of yarn. 

--If the length you want is longer than you are tall, a staircase is handy.

--Three crochet hooks, these are the weights. Alternative weights include binder clips or any tall, narrow, not-too heavy kitchen utensils, wooden spoons, perhaps, or chopsticks.

Weights

You could attach the weights to the yarn using regular knots, but easiest is with a slip knot, so here's a quick refresher. 

A slip knot is just a loop through a granny-knot. For splitting yarn, you want the loop to be self-tightening towards the length, not towards the  end. In other words, the  loop of the running yarn  slips towards the long part of the stand. If done right, as the weight comes onto the crochet hook (or wooden spoon or whatever) the loop tightens up to hold the weight securely. 

A slip knot's advantage is how it pulls out of the split yarn at the end, leaving no trace. A regular knot works too, but then you have to unpick the knot or cut it off. 

Set up

Start by splitting out several inches of yarn as shown below. If splitting a short length, it doesn't matter which end you split. If using a mini-hank, split out the center-pull end.

The yarn here is being unspun by twisting it clockwise. But, some yarns require to be spun counter-clockwise to be untwisted. Within seconds of starting, it'll be obvious which way to go. 

Now there are three ends: the tail end of the yarn to be unspun, as well as the two splits. Using slip knots (or regular knots) attach a crochet hook to each 2-ply split. To the other end of the yarn length, slip-knot the third hook. Again, the direction of the slip is away from the tail, so as weight comes on, the knots tighten. 

A longer length of yarn is being split here, so the excess is stored out of the way in a mini-hank to prevent tangling, with additional lengths pulled out as needed. 

If only splitting a shorter amount, the set up is the same but there's no need to make up a mini-hank, because there is no excess yarn to keep out of the way. Simply attach the three weights to the opposite ends of an un-hanked length of yarn.

Now, at the top of a staircase, toss the whole assembly over the edge, keeping hold of the 2-ply splits. With a split hanging from each hand, and the unspilt yarn hanging in the middle, keep untwisting by simply pulling the halves apart gently. If wooly bits catch between the splits, break them loose gently with a forefinger. Hold the yarns far enough apart so they don't tangle. For longer lengths, you can see that a mini-hank is useful: it stays compact and together, but easily center-pulls additional lengths as needed. If using a yarn butterfly rubber-banded together, also pull out lengths as needed, out from under the rubber band. At the end, haul the separated strands to the top of the stairs, remove the hooks and all the slip knots come out easily. 

If you look carefully at the video, you see the two splits each twist in an opposite direction from the main ball. All that twisted-in energy is coming out, right before your eyes, with no tangling or kinking.

Use

As running yarn. For use as a running yarn, you'll end up with two lengths of thin yarn, each as long as the original: a four-foot length yields two splits of four foot each. Felting or otherwise joining these together yields a double-length strand--an eight foot strand. Therefore, untwist a length only half as long as needed, then join the two halves together for one full-length strand. 

This thinner yarn will be more fragile, but, like other fragile yarns (e.g.: Shetland, Lopi) gains strength as it is knit or crocheted. This is because working fragile yarn in loops doubles it back up again. Therefore, splits are usually strong enough for utility use--in three-needle bind off, for example, or a slip-stitched (crocheted) seam. Just go easy with the tension, especially around the felted join. 

Segues in color knitting or ombrés. Going beyond utility, a pretty trick with splits is holding two different-color strands together for segues. Just a few rows or rounds in two-colored splits erase the line between stripes in different colors. This is especially good to erase the line between two similar colors, such as a gradient set. 

A more intense use is to create ombrés by working mixed splits close together, as with this letter "B."  

Ombré created by working rows in different color splits. Where there is only one color, two splits of that color were used.

In a future post, there will be more about knitting letters and words--a specialized form of knitting called "banner knitting."

As sewing yarn, split yarn is obviously fragile. First, it is thinner, and second, it becomes somewhat unspun--once separated out of the main ball, the fibers are not as tightly packed together. When using thinner yarn for sewing (e.g.: mattress stitch, hemming or buttons) split out short lengths: shorter than you would for thread.  Also, push the needle through (perhaps with a thimble) rather than pulling on the needle. Shorter lengths and less pulling = less stress on the yarn.

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Edit, a few days after posting. 

Originally, I wrote that for large amounts of thinner yarn, it would be best to acquire it some other way. In the meanwhile, however, a reader sent interesting feedback on the TECHknitting Ravelry forum, about how in their projects, they routinely split out large amounts of yarn. The link is here, with follow-up here. So, if you do want to split out large amounts of yarn, check out these comments (especially applicable to yarns loosely plied together such as cotton or embroidery-floss like yarns). 

--TK

Other posts about yarn handling:

Yarn organization for color knitting

Quickly unkinking yarn with a steam iron (video)

Center-pull balls of yarn, wound up by hand (with video)

Winding a Skein into a ball of yarn (with video)

* * *

Questions? Feedback? Contact me at 

Blue Sky  @techknitter.bsky.social or  

talk to me about this post on Ravelry TECHknitter forum

Winding a skein into a ball of yarn

All skeined up, that yarn looks innocent, doesn't it? 

What, me tangle? Never!

But when you first start in with skeins, it seems danger lurks. Perhaps that innocent looking skein will snarl into an awful tangle, never to come right. 

...snarl into an awful tangle...

Let's take the monster by the tail and see what happens. Poke the tail (now colored red) into and through the skein. The skein comes undone in stages.

Result: a large wheel of yarn.

This wheel is made up of many many loops, tied together at one or more places along the perimeter. And this is where things really can go south. You see, each strand must be sorted to lay smooth among its neighbors while the center must be absolutely clear. Loops crossing from one side to the other, strands heading the wrong way out of a tie: these can cause endless grief.

Strands and loops crossing over the middle must be smoothed back into place, heading in the correct direction out of the tie

After all is smooth and tidy, it's time to mount the yarn-wheel on something: a chair back, perhaps, or a yarn swift (more about swifts, below). The important thing is don't unknot the ties until the wheel is safely slung around some object which permanently prevents crossing over the middle.

What you sling the yarn around depends on what you have. The quickest set-up is a swift of some kind and a yarn-winder. But for many (many!) years I had neither, and used a chair-back to hold yarn as I wound balls by hand. TECHknitting has already shown how to wind balls by hand, and the yarn for winding is supplied as you lift the strands, one at a time, over the chair back.

Use what you have

Swifts are basically arms of some kind which hold the yarn-wheel and (swiftly!) spin as you pull on the running yarn. All swifts hold the yarn-wheel under tension, preventing tangling: under tension a yarn wheel cannot shed loose loops here and there. Some swifts tension yarn with an umbrella-like unfolding mechanism ("umbrella swifts")  and some by means of pegs.  First fit the yarn-wheel loosely to the swift, then push the umbrella button or set the pegs to make the yarn wheel stretch as tight as possible. 

Umbrella swift. The orange button on the hub allows the mechanism to unfold upwards like an umbrella, The yarn-wheel stretches to its fullest as the mechanism enlarges.

Once mounted, it is time to unknot. The yarn-wheel is tied together in at least one place along its perimeter, and usually more spots, also. The main tie brings together the first (purple) and last (red) strands. Typically, the purple strand is brought to the surface in one or more loops, the red strand is threaded through the loops and the two strands are then tied together in a slip knot. This knot can be undone by pulling on the tails in the direction of the blue arrow. As to the other ties, these are usually simple loops, but after several unfortunate incidents, I try to untie all knots as much as possible, saving scissors for a last resort. 

The first purple) and last (red) strands are typically interwoven, then tied with a slip knot. To undo the knot, pull the tails in the direction of the blue arrow. 

It's less obvious in real life, but I have colorized the red and purple strands to show more clearly in this photo. 

Click here to enlarge: colorized, interwoven ends in real life.

Once the first and last strands are untied, tuck the last strand behind a slat of the swift (red arrow). Leaving it loose to flap is just asking for trouble. 

Tuck end behind slat

The last step before starting to wind is untwisting the skein as it lays on the swift. Twisted strands are often confused for crossed strands because both make the swift jam up. However, because you've already eliminated crossed strands as a culprit, the trick now is to locate and undo any twist. Twist traps some strands behind others, as these green strands are trapped behind the red, below. To cure, rotate that section of the skein (blue arrow) until the trapped strands are freed to the surface. Some skeins are highly twisted, so you have to go around and around several times, rotating the skein repeatedly until it unreels smoothly.

Rotating trapped strands to the surface

And now to winding! As mentioned, it is possible to make quite neat balls of yarn by hand, but quickest and easiest is a yarn winder. 

Once out of the box, assembled and clamped to a table, the ball-winder is threaded with the yarn through the yarn-guide, and the running end of the yarn coming off the swift is trapped in the slot at the top of the spindle, as shown. As you turn the handle (doesn't matter which way, but be consistent!) the yarn winds on. The handle has been colorized green in this illustration.

End of running yarn trapped in slot atop yarn winder spindle. This will become the center-pull

The winder base is tilted, so as it spins, it presents an ever-changing location for the yarn to wind onto. Close inspection shows the yarn actually winds on straight from the yarn-guide to the ball-surface. However, because of the tilt, the ball surface itself tilts toward then away, so yarn winds on from top of the spindle to the bottom, then back again. Further, the tilt is out of synch with the spin, so each new round of yarn goes on in a slightly different place than the one before. Result = a regular pattern of cross-winding. It's really very clever! 

Cross-winding

Geek note 1: This cross-winding pattern can be duplicated by hand for the mathematically inclined: here is an amazing 4-stage sample, a work of art in itself. 

And finally, if one picture is worth a thousand words, a 12-second video must be worth several paragraphs, right?  So here you go. 

 

There seems to be a theory that the winder must be mounted far away from the swift, but as you see, this isn't really necessary. Important is that the yarn exiting the swift takes a direct route to the winder. If the yarn has to go around a corner to enter the winder's ball-guide, reorient the winder. 

Trouble shooting

--If the winder stops but the swift keeps going, the yarn will spool around the shaft of the swift. So you have to unwind the yarn from the shaft before continuing. To prevent, stop the swift by hand the instant the ball-winder starts acting up. (This becomes an automatic reaction, pretty quick!)

--If the swift jams but the ball winder keeps going for a second, the yarn winds onto the ball very tightly. Cure by unspooling the tightly wound length and re-spool it onto the winder at normal tension before continuing.

--If the ball winder acts up and skips gears, there's too much tension between the swift and winder. Usually, this happens when twisting causes uneven feed. Cure by going back to the yarn on the swift and untwisting until the trapped strands come to the surface. Then, per above, unspool and respool the trouble spots. 

Tips

--It's awfully tempting to wind up all your yarn when it first comes home. However, you cannot return yarn to the store once wound up. Also, unless you're planning to knit up soon, it's actually easier on the yarn to store it as a skein. This is because yarn in a ball is under tension, while yarn in a skein is not. Yarn under tension will eventually stretch. Then, when it finally gets wet and has a chance to relax, it may very well go back to its original length. Result: the garment will seem to shrink, and of course, shrink unevenly. You can solve this problem by winding balls LOOSELY, but far-future projects, as well as souvenir yarn really are better off stored in skeins. 

--Knots in yarn have a way of appearing just as you get to the front left breast in a field of smooth stockinette. To fight unexpected knots, loosely guide the yarn through your hand as it travels from the winder to the ball. Stop the winder and cut out any knots you find, then knot in a contrasting color scrap as temporary inlay. In use, the inlay gives warning that a join is coming. Forewarned, you can plan just how much yarn you need to cut out (either just the knots and inlay, or a longer length to include the knots and inlay) in order to land your proper join in an inconspicuous spot.

 

Cut out any knots you find (top) then knot in a temporary contrast color inlay (red, bottom). In use, the inlay provides warning a join is coming up.

--As the ball is pulled off the spindle, the center collapses. If you plan to center-pull your balls, make sure you have hold of the center yarn where it crosses the spindle-slot before you unmount the ball from the winder. This is also the perfect time to fold the yarn label and pull the ball up over it: as the center collapses around it, the label is held securely. 

--Finally, consider tying on contrasting color scraps to both ends of the ball--the center-pull as well as the outside end. Now the tails are obvious, even when tucked into the ball for safe-keeping. The specter of tangling is tamed, the yarn ball is angelic again. 

Angelic again. This ball has contrast color leaders tied on, and the label and leaders tucked in. 

Take care--TK

 * * *

Questions? Feedback? Contact me at 

Blue Sky  @techknitter.bsky.social or  

talk to me about this post on Ravelry TECHknitter forum

* * *

Previously published posts about yarn handling

Yarn organization for color knitting

Quickly unkinking yarn with a steam iron (video)

Center-pull balls of yarn, wound up by hand (with video)

Center-pull balls of yarn, wound up by hand

Scrap amounts, or a whole skein: any reasonable amount of yarn can be hand-wound into neat and tidy center-pull balls. There's a video, followed by the non-video illustrated version. 

Video

If the video does not load for you, here's the direct link to the You-Tube URL 

If the subtitles are in your way, pull them to the screen top, and by all means, skip the ads--they are annoying as heck. 

Here is the non-video illustrated explanation.

Begin by laying the yarn tail between the first two fingers of your non-dominant hand (left hand in the illustration). This tail will become the center-pull. 

Lay the tail between your first two fingers. This will become the center-pull

Now trap down the tail with your thumb, then wrap the yarn over your fingers 10 times to form a (very) mini hank.

Mini-hank wound over first two fingers

Once you have ten loops over your fingers, slip this mini-hank off your fingers, pinch it up and wind more yarn over its middle, meaning at 90 degrees to the direction of the original wind.

Wind over the middle

For a small ball, the last two steps are these

    -- As you come to the last wrap, lay a forefinger alongside the winding, then wind the very last wrap over it, as shown below. Then, pull up tightly. 

    -- Insert the tail-end UNDER the last wrap, in the direction from your forefinger towards the palm of you hand, meaning inserting towards the center-pull:  red arrow  in illustration above. If you've done this last part correctly, the entire scrap of yarn will unwind from the center pull without a knot in its tail. Inserted the other way (from palm towards finger) will leave a small granny-knot in the tail. Give a final gentle tug to seat the tail and there's your tiny center-pull ball. This is a very convenient, very quick way of organizing scraps. 

For the larger ball version,  keep winding over the center mini-hank maybe 20 or 25 times, until you have a good mass into which you can sink a "claw" consisting of your thumb and middle finger, as shown.

In the upcoming action, each of the fingers on your non-dominant hand gets a different role. 

--The claw of thumb and middle-finger is the axis around which the ball will rotate. Where these fingers are, the top and bottom ball-eyes will form.

--The forefinger  provides  rotation  by a ratcheting action, meaning it will rotate the ball towards the palm  (red arrow)  one small step after each wrap: "to ratchet" means to "proceed by steps or degrees." 

--The last two fingers hold down the center-pull against the palm so it does not get lost.  

The action is this: the dominant hand winds the yarn over the top of the ball, first bringing the yarn towards you, then away over the top of the ball, around the back, and so up from the bottom again. In the illustration below, the yarn has been passed over the top of the ball, is now around the back, and will shortly be drawn forward again, up from the bottom, and so over the thumb. In this way, every wrap slightly overlaps the thumb. 

As the ball is rotated by the forefinger, the yarn slides off the thumbnail in the direction of the green arrow. If each rotation is equal, the yarn slides off at even intervals: this is how the very pretty and regular pattern of yarn is laid down. The yarn is also wrapped slightly overlapping the middle finger as it passes around the back of the ball, and the same slide-off occurs at each ratchet-step. 

 As to just HOW the forefinger provides rotation, in the illustration below A and B are both your forefinger, just in different places. When the forefinger is in the A position, it is just about to plunge into the ball. As soon as the wrap goes by, the forefinger does plunge into the ball. Then, still plunged, it is drawn towards the palm, into the B position (solid blue arrow). This make the ball rotate one small step around the "claw" axis of your thumb and middle finger. In the illustration, the forefinger in its B position has just completed the rotation and is being lifted out of the ball.

After each little rotation, the forefinger is raised and put back into the A position (blue d-o-t-t-e-d arrow), waiting above the ball for another wrap to go by. With each wrap, the forefinger again plunges into the ball and draws the ball towards the palm into the B position. It is in this sense that the forefinger is "ratcheting" the ball. In other words, it is the repeated sinking, drawing and lifting action which rotates the ball by a small degree each wrap, and so each trip of the forefinger from A to B is a "ratchet step." 

If you find this confusing, then, even if you HATE videos, consider watching just the "wrap-and-ratchet" action of the video at the top of this post. That specific action starts at 2:37 (2 minutes and 37 seconds) into the video.

If you are wrapping and ratcheting with your thumb and middle finger "claw" always in the same place, deep eyes would form at each finger, and the ball would start to become egg-shaped. The steeper the egg, the more yarn would try to fall off the sides. So, when you start approaching egg shape, you have to stop wrapping and change position. Simply sink your thumb and middle finger "claw" into the ball in a new place, and then start wrapping and ratcheting in this new position. 

You may wonder what happens to the center-pull when you wind over it, and the answer is, nothing happens. As long as you give the center pull yarn a tug every so often to keep it at the correct length, and as long as you don't lose track of it, the center-pull yarn will travel along the inside the ball from the old eye to the new eye, and appear there. When you first go to tug on a center-pull ball which has been wound using many changes of direction, the center pull may be stubborn. Have faith! Insist! Keep tugging and the stubbornness will subside. After these first few tight tugs, the center-pull will have created a straighter path from the heart of the ball where it originates, to pull more easily outward.

Three last thoughts.

First, just because the ball is capable of being center-pulled does not mean you have to use it that way. In fact, center-pulling may introduce unwanted twist. For more info, there's a whole TECHknitting post about that, but the short version is, you may want to unwind from the outside of the ball to prevent biasing. If you for sure are going to unwind from the outside, you can wind the ball just as shown here, but without keeping track of the center-pull.

Outside-unwinding is conveniently done either via a yarn lazy-suzan* (either commercial or home-made) or a yarn bowl or similar container. If outside-unwinding a center-pull ball, tuck the center-pull into the eye of the ball, having first knotted-on a scrap of contrast color yarn so you can find it again.

And finally, we are winding yarn here, not the innards of a baseball. Keep the tension of winding as loose as you can: tight enough so the yarn doesn't fall off in every direction, but no tighter. Tight winding stretches the yarn now and leads to problems later--uneven gauge, garments which shrink mysteriously the first time they are wetted and even yarn which offers to come apart. Loose is the watchword when winding yarn into balls! 

--TK

* Geek note: if you know ahead of time you'll be using a lazy-susan with a spike, you'll have to re-mount the ball at every place you changed direction of winding, because the placement of the eyes has changed. Therefore, you may choose to change direction of winding less often than if you were unwinding via yarn-bowl.

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Related posts about yarn handling

Yarn organization for color knitting

Quickly unkinking yarn with a steam iron (video)

Winding a skein into a ball of yarn

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Questions or feedback? Talk to me about this post on Ravelry's TECHknitting forum