Yarn is a tangled mess... cut-off and rejoin? Help!

chixdilla · 11-14-2011, 08:11 PM

Help! I'm knitting with a double-strand from two skeins of Lion Brand's Pound of Love, (those things are huge!) and somehow the inside yarn of one of the balls came out, and became insanely tangled in my working strands, and now I've got an impossible mess of yarn that I can't work with. The more I pull my working yarns, the more tangled it gets, and it's just getting worse.

The only easy solution I can come up with is to cut off the yarn mess and re-join my working strands to the yarns from the balls. So my question is, what method is the best for this? I'm knitting a blanket, so I don't have any seams or anything to hide the joins in. I'm guessing I could just do a weaver's knot at the end of the row (if I can even get there with the mess I've got!) and weave the ends in. But since I'm working with a double-strand, should I knot each strand individually or together? Or is there a better way of doing this that one of you lovely knitting geniuses can suggest? I've gotta finish this blanket in a few days and I'm about to tear my hair out!!

MerigoldinWA · 11-15-2011, 01:30 AM

First of all my husband has taught me that to untangle anything (this is sailor knowledge applied to ropes) don''t pull on the working yarns (in this case) but take the tangled knotted part and gently pull it out from the middle. Take hold of the center between both hands and pull your hands apart gently. Repeat several times. This will loosen things up so that you can untangle. Untangle as much as you can and then do the untangling action again. (It may be possible to find a video of how to untangle yarn or rope by doing a Google search.)

If this doesn't solve the problem enough for you to continue... If I add in a ball in the middle of a project I just leave a tail and leave a tail of the new yarn and start knitting with the new yarn. No knots, and I don't care where I change yarns. Sometimes I prefer the middle over the edges.

Doing this will leave a little hole. I think the nicest way to close the hole is to do a bit of duplicate stitch working in of the yarn on the back side so that it closes the hole. Knitty online knitting magazine has a tutorial about how to hide in ends with duplicate stitch. I'd recommend you practice joining in a new yarn a couple of times on a small swatch and see how you do before you do it on your project.

salmonmac · 11-15-2011, 01:33 AM

Cut the end connected to the tangles leaving about 6 inches to weave in. Either undo the tangles now that you have a free end or cut out the tangle portion and throw it away. Overlap the new end with the the 6" tail and knit with 3 strands for one or two sts. Drop the old end and continue on with two strands. Later you can go back and weave in the ends. You don't need any knots to do this and it will be quite secure. Here's a great tutorial on weaving in ends.

suzeeq · 11-15-2011, 01:43 AM

You don't need to cut both yarns, just the one that's tangled up. Though it may be possible to untangle it - pull gently on the side that's still connected to the skein. Then when you have a pile of yarn, do a small figure 8/butterfly skein starting from the end that's connected to your knitting. That'll keep it out of the way and you can pull the yarn from it easily.

chixdilla · 11-15-2011, 01:56 AM

The thing is, both of my working yarns are caught up in the tangled mess. So, salmonmac, wouldn't I be knitting with 4 strands of yarn when I join them in, since I had to cut off both strands? I gave up on untangling the mess, since I've been trying to untangle it since this morning and nothing has worked.

salmonmac · 11-15-2011, 02:27 AM

Alternatively, you can work with 2 old strands and one new for a stitch, drop one of the old and add in the second new for a st, then drop the 2nd old and continue with 2 new strands. Or you could just start with the two new ends and cross the yarns later (to avoid a hole) when you're ready to weave in.

chixdilla · 11-15-2011, 02:59 AM

That tutorial you posted for weaving the ends in is really helpful. But what do you mean by "crossing the yarns"? Sorry, I've never done this before!

And since I've got 2 strands coming out of each end, do I weave them in separately, or together?

The problems with this blanket never seem to end.

salmonmac · 11-15-2011, 03:07 AM

When you come to weave in ends where you've just picked up the new yarn and started in, you'll notice that there's a small hole. If you take the ends of yarn and cross them, one end over the other, one to the left and one end to the right, the hole goes away. So cross them in an X and then weave in.

lori1551 · 11-20-2011, 05:39 PM

Here is a video showing you the braided join which is very invisible, hope it's not to late to help you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-u66X5RYjc