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| 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'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.
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| 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.
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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."
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| 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 knittingQuickly 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)
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