Hello crafters!

Anyone who works with yarn has that scrap pile lurking in the corner with all the odds and ends that are too short to make anything from. My circumstances are a little more extreme than most as I made a VERY bad decision regarding my yarn stash.

I typically run all my yarn through the washer and dryer when I first purchase it so that it can do whatever shrinking or stretching that it plans to do BEFORE I turn it into it’s new self. One day while digging through my excessively abundant stash I realised that I had a ton of yarn with the labels still on, meaning that I had never washed it. I then decided it would be an excellent idea to run ALL of this yarn in one giant laundry batch and have it all ready to use. After removing all of the labels I ran it through the washer. No problem, nice and clean! On to the dry cycle while I relax with some crochet and a cup of tea.

I then returned to the dryer to collect what I thought would be my assorted balls of delightfully soft and clean yarn but what I came to find was this:

Yes, that is a 70lb dog hidden behind my stash.

Let’s have a moment of silence for what must have been hundreds of dollars of yarn. Unfortunately the dryer had completely unravelled and re-spun my yarn into one massive (thoroughly blended) log of yarn. I have to admit, as I brought my boyfriend down to the laundry room to show him the log of yarn that just seemed to keep coming out of the dryer I couldn’t hold back my hysterical laughter. But once I had it out of the dryer and took a step back, I burst into tears. That’s right, I actually cried over yarn. I really don’t cry easily but you fellow crafters can probably feel my pain, right?

After managing to wrestle my yarn into a garbage bag I shoved it to the back of a closet and figured I would deal with it later. My first attempt to unravel the pieces was clearly not going to work so I have come to accept the fact that I need to cut it all apart which will leave me with a yarn scrap pile bigger that anyone has ever seen.

All this trauma has had one positive outcome! Now I can show you how to create a yarn scrap ball 🙂 I have so many scraps that I will even be able to share three different joining methods with you! Each of these methods has it’s own pros and cons which I have shared below so that you can pick the method that will work best with your scrap yarn ball project 🙂

Method one: Reef knot

Anyone who did girl guides as a child knows how to do the reef knot! This is probably the easiest and most obvious way to tie your yarn scraps together.

Pros:

• effective at connecting different yarn weights
• easy to do
• works up quickly

Cons:

• yarn ends stick out at each join (some people prefer this is if trying to make a ‘scrappy’ looking project) Could resolve this issue by crocheting over all of the yarn tails as you go.

Method two: Russian Join

This method weaves the two ends into the plies of the yarn for a seamless join.

Pros:

• Seamless join with no ends sticking out (better for projects such as clothing where you don’t want stray ends)
• Very strong join

Cons:

• More time-consuming than other methods
• Doesn’t work as well with low ply yarns as there aren’t as many strands to weave into
• The yarn is slightly thicker at the join, may be visible depending on the project

Using a yarn needle weave the first yarn end back through itself, working your needle through the layers of yarn. Loop second yarn through open loop and repeat to make another closed loop. Pull the ends to tighten. Tie any excess ends.

Method three: Weaver’s knot

The weaver’s knot is tied and then the yarn ends are cut off close to the knot.

Pros:

• Works up quickly
• No ends sticking out

Cons:

• Chance of knot untying are higher than with the reef knot as the ends are cut so close
• Knots may be visible in work
• Lots of yarn ends to cut off
• Doesn’t not hold well when connecting different yarn weights

Start by making a loop with the first yarn (purple) and then weave your second yarn (blue) through as shown in the picture.

Other ways to make your own yarn balls

While you are turning waste into yarn you might want to click the links below to check out my other tutorials on fabric yarn made from your old clothes or plarn made from plastic bags!

I hope this tutorial has been useful in helping you manage all those yarn scraps! I would love to hear what projects you have in store for your scrap yarn ball in the comments below 🙂

Happy crafting!