Unraveling May Harm Yarn

We’ve all been there. Either you made a big mistake while knitting and need to rip out a bunch of your work (I have a project on timeout right now for this very reason) or you’ve abandoned a project and decide you don’t want to knit it after all so you need to tear it out.

Most yarns can handle a little ripping back with ease, but after repeated rippings your yarn can show signs of wear. Emily at Berroco explains that the structure of the yarn and how or whether its plied plays a major role in whether yarn can take multiple unravelings.

Singles yarns are more fragile than yarns that are plied firmly, so if you’re working a new stitch pattern in a more delicate yarn you may want to practice your moves with something more stable first and move on to your real yarn once you get the hang of it to limit damage to the fibers. Smart advice.

Have you ever ripped a yarn back so many times that it got messy? I will admit to having thrown away mohair because it’s so hard to rip back!

[Photo via Berroco.]

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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