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Giant Yarn (F2)

giant yarn in progress

This pattern is a bit of a cheat because it's more a description of a knitting project than a detailed step by step. The aim is to turn frayed, moth-eaten, or otherwise broken yarn into new, super chunky yarn.

You will need:

  • lots of yarn scraps
  • 2 x large needles (see notes)
  • 2 x really, really big needles (see notes)
  • tapestry needle
  • scissors

Pattern:

Cut out any frayed or damaged yarn leaving neat scraps of varying length. Knot the yarn scraps together to form a continuous string. The knots don't have to be pretty as they're going to be hidden on the inside of the cord.

  • Cast on 6 sts.
  • I-cord until you reach the first knot on the string.
  • Work to the end of the row making sure the knotted section lies on the back of a stitch. Tuck the loose ends down inside the body of the i-cord.
  • Continue until you run out of yarn.
  • Thread yarn through remainin stitches and pull tight.

Notes:

Needle/Yarn Size

So up above are the instructions for giant yarn. As you can see it's just a long six stitch i-cord. The only real difficulties come from the questions what size needles should I knit the i-cord with? and what size needles should I knit the knitted i-cord with?

First question first, which size needles should you use the make the i-cord? Well you want them to be large enough that the finished i-cord will be kind of limp and malleable (i.e. easily knit-able). Trial and error led me to settle on 6mm needles for double knit yarn and 10mm needles for cable-weight. Knitted up my double knit i-cord yarn is about 15mm wide and the cable-weight stuff 25mm wide.

I admit my choice was greatly influence by the size needles I had easily available. A millimetre or so up or down won't make much difference. Also I don't have many double pointed needles in the larger sizes so I used regular needles to i-cord, just slip all the freshly knitted stitches from the right needle to the left every time you complete a row. With practice it can be done is a single motion.

What size needles to knit the knitted i-cord on again depends on what you have available. The largest needles I have are 25mm and this is just about right for knitting the double knit weight i-cord. I need larger needles for the cable-weight i-cord and that's going to be stage two of this project [coming soon].