Recycle Your Wool

Would you like to be able to recycle your wool from a garment that is too small, too big or out of style?

Many knitters are reluctant to re-use wool from an old garment as the wool tends to retain a memory of the shape of the stitches. The fabric created by knitting pre-used wool is not as smooth or even as fabric knitted with new wool.

© Lisa Risager | Flickr - Unpicked Wool

It is a shame, as wool is one of the most durable of all fibers and if a garment is well cared (washing etc) for it will last for years and years.

Would you like to be able to re-use your wool and create a garment that looks like it was made with new wool?

It can be done!

How to Recycle Your Wool

By washing the wool and weighting it as it drys!

The first step is to unpick the old garment. I usually wind the wool into balls as it is easier to prepare the wool in several steps. Once I have the wool in balls I rewind it into skeins using a spinning tool called a niddy noddy.

© Knitting Naturally - Niddy Noddy

A niddy noddy is a wooden tool with two cross pieces at either end. You wind the wool around the four ends of these cross pieces to form a skein of wool.

Once you have wound the whole ball around the niddy noddy, you secure both ends with a small piece of wool (I use a different color so they are easy to find), and remove it from the frame.

Then you have to wash your skeins of wool.

You will find instructions on how to wash wool on this page. When the wool has been washed and rinsed you will need to hang the skeins somewhere out of direct sunlight to dry. Each skein should be weighted with something to create a bit of tension on the wool. I usually hang a coat hanger from the bottom of the skein.

If it is not heavy enough the pull the wool straight, you can hang a tea towel on the hanger to increase the weight.

Once the skeins are dry, you can rewind them into balls all ready for knitting.

Couldn't be easier...