The Masochism Tangle

[astra_nomer]

Many years ago, I acquired 4 balls of a yarn called "Java," a rayon-acrylic-silk blend, from the oddments bin at a yarn store in Britain. At the time, I was an intern at HP Labs in Bristol, England, and part of my job was to learn Java, so I thought this was really funny, and kept a ball in my cubicle for amusement value.

Some years later, I encountered more of the same yarn, albeit differently packaged, in the discount pile in a store here in the States. Great! I thought, now I have enough to make a sweater.

I finally pulled it all out a few weeks ago, intending to make a nice cardigan with a nifty multicolored slip stitch pattern to combine the yarn, all of various colors, together. It's pretty yarn. It's mercerized, has a nice drape to it when it's knit up, and feels nice and smooth against the skin.

This has got to be the tangliest yarn I have ever worked with.

You'd think that a nice non-fuzzy yarn like this wouldn't have such problems, but no. It ties itself up into the most complicated knots imaginable. I once put my work down on top of a spare ball, and ended up spending a good 15 minutes untangling the whole mess because half the yarn on the ball decided to fall off and get wild with the work-in-progress.

It doesn't help that the pattern I've chosen requires that I work with three balls of yarn at a time. And that I throw it all into a tote bag between talks. I swear I spend more time detangling the thing than knitting.

So why am I putting up with it? Go re-read the title. I have some knitting to get back to.

Comments

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

That sounds like it's wound at too high or too low a twist - if you clip the skein to the working yarn and let it hang free, does it unwind itself to a more comfortable twist?

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

It doesn't twist. It simply likes to loop around itself and ties itself into knots. It's as if it doesn't have enough bounce to keep itself from getting caught up in itself.

yarn bra?

[ler.livejournal.com]

Have you tried a yarn bras (http://www.patternworks.com/PWShopping/partsview.asp?action=lookup&partno=300016&subject=&catpos=)?

Re: yarn bra?

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

That might be useful... I had about given up hope on pulling this yarn from the center of the ball because the balls fall apart so easily.