Thursday, August 15, 2019

Hairball! No, wait. Worse!

I received a LOT of yarn from a friend who's spouse had recently died.  He had no use for it, and said he'd just chuck it in the burn pile if I didn't want it.  Avoiding such sacrilege, I came home with something like 6 or so boxes of yarn.

This is good.  Quite good.  Except they were stored... Not so well.  They were dusty, and some were covered with grit, among other things.  (We jokingly say it's back of the barn fresh...)  I really didn't want to have the stuff be in the craft room with all the dust. Huh.  So, wonder if I can wash them?  I start looking online, in a couple knitting forums, and find out, yep, they can be washed.  I figure, okay, I have a batch I will put into a couple pillow covers, and Voila, clean yarn.

Ahem.

Now begins the tale of one woman's decent into madness...

On the forum, there was a definite agreement that it COULD be done.  Several different methods were mentioned.  I decided that putting the skeins in a pillow case, and using safety pins, lock them in, and wash, and dry.  (There was some debate about whether they should be dried, some thought it would damage the yarn.  I don't happen to have the faintest idea about what you are supposed to do with the yarn once it's washed if you DON'T dry it!!)

So, I get my pillowcases, place several yarn skeins in, and close with pins.  Big pins.  Pins that could cause severe pain and puncture.  Of which I did at least twice, on two fingers.  With prodigious and creative epithets following.  Fortune would have it, I was alone in the house, except for Ding.  She did look a little oddly at me, and decided it was probably a good time to go in the other room...

I put the bags in the wash, along with a pillow, to balance the load out.  Wash.

Then I pull out the bags.  White puffs? Huh?  Oh, urk.  There was a hole in the pillow, and the washer quite literally beat the stuffing out of it.  So, remove stuffings that are all over the washer, the outside of the pillow, outside of the pillowcases...  And then note, one of the yarn skeins has come partway out of the pillowcase.  Stuff back in. 

Well, that wasn't great, but not as bad as I had feared.  Dry.

Then I take out the nice, clean, fresh smelling, OH MY GOODNESS WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED???!?!!!???

Where I had several nice skeins in the bags, I now had a large, colorful, amorphous mass.  A highly TANGLED amorphous mass. 

So, the next two days were carefully (for the most part, patience won out with one, and I just pulled it until it broke so I could finish) untangling, and rewinding or rolling up skeins.  I was not a happy camper.  Husband tried to tell me about a way that might prevent it happening again.  I have decided that I will indeed wash more yarn. (See, nutty as a fruitcake.)  The next one will be ONE skein per bag, and perhaps a victim loving Husband will pin the darn things shut...

5 more boxes to go...

 Whimper...



2 comments:

messymimi said...

Oh, Santa Cleopatra! What a turn of events!

Do you think those bags for delicate items (not the mesh ones, the ones that are made of a silk-like material) would work better, since they zip closed?

Cat said...

Yes, I believe so, I have to get some found and bought, or ordered... I am SO not brave enough to do that again!!!!

Cat (who, while liking to play with yarn, doesn't care for doing so in THAT manner...)