I love finding free knitting patterns and to go along with that I love to save money reusing old yarn. Have you ever looked at a sweater and thought that you don't like the style anymore but you love the color or the texture of the yarn. Well, I have. Maybe I never really liked it in the first place. Its time to dig out a great free knitting pattern and re-use the yarn.

The first thing I do is search through my free knitting pattern collection to find one I like and see if the sweater I am reusing is big enough for the new knitting pattern. First I unstitch the seams. Snip carefully with scissors so you don't cut through the actual knitting. First you need to find the end where the knitting was cast off. This makes it very easy to just pull and unravel each row. It helps if you have a helper with their hands about a foot apart, or you can use the back of a chair to wind the yarn around. Keep doing this until you come to the end of that piece of yarn. Tie another piece of yarn around the yarn bundle in two places so it doesn't tangle. This yarn will be very wrinkled, would be difficult to knit with and would give a bumpy texture to your knitting if used like this.

I have had some success with washing the yarn in bundles (washable yarn only of course). I wash yarn as usual leaving the yarn dripping wet. I hang the yarn over the back of an old chair outside, or inside in the bath tub in the winter. You can use anything that will hang. A stick across two boxes will work. The weight of the water will unwrinkle the yarn. After it is dry I hand wind the yarn into balls or use my yarn winder. I prefer the yarn winder as it allows the yarn to be pulled from the middle which stops it rolling and catching but if you don't have one then hand winding it is. Good luck in your knitting