I was attempting to find the centre-pull on some Jiffy yarn and in the process dismantled the entire ball, I spent two hours trying to disentangle the freaking tangled mess last night. I gave up. GRRRRRR I hate untangled large amounts of yarn!!!
Fudgey fraksicles
I think the technical term for that is “yarn vomit” 
Yep, I call that yarn barf. Haha!:lol:
Or Yarf. Anyway as for the tangled mess, take lots of breaks while untangling. Also make a ball with what you’ve managed to untangle to keep it from tangling again. If you’re really desperate to untangle the yarf you could always [I][B]cut[/B][/I] it.
eek
The best advice I can give for yarn barf, is PATIENCE.
and, as RoseFairy said, make a ball with the untangled portion as you go.
Start at one end and put it back through one loop at a time. If you come to a tight knot, take a deep breath before trying to loosen it. When you get frustrated, it’s time for a break.
I managed to finally detangle the whole freaking mess and make a tidy tight ball with it. It was wool-ease by lion btw, omg sooooo ooooo soft, I simply must knit a scarf or some other thing to cuddle up against with it…
Yay! Good that you untangled it.
I did this with one of those huge Pound of Love balls and nearly went nuts. Thanks for giving me a new expression to use! Some of mine were not so nice. I eventually wound it into several smaller balls after I got my temper under control and my patience back.
lol…I used a few four letter words myself. I like “yarf” myself, sums it up nicely…
I’m lucky none of my yarf has ever been too extreme. I think the worse I ever get is when I’ve unraveled something and just let it pool before trying to re-wind it, needless to say, not a good idea. I should always re-wind my yarn while I unravel. You think I would since I have a ball winder. I think my problem is I always assume the unraveled part won’t have ‘that’ much yarn.
I have a KP winder waiting for me in Denver, I will put it to good use.
I actually do use my ball winder a lot, it’s just when I unravel a project I misjudge how much yarn I’ll have afterwards. How’s your tube socks coming btw?
hehe… when I was little, mom bought a big skein of yarn for some project. my brother and I (I was probably 5, him 3) got ahold of it, and I’m pretty sure the tangled mess is still in the bottom of mom’s closet. That yarn was designated as our ‘play yarn’ so that we wouldn’t mess up any more. (she doesn’t knit or crochet, so IDK what she was using the yarn for…)
Been there, done that - on too many occasions to count. Not one of the fun aspects of any fiber art. Glad you got it all done though. Have you decided what to make with it?
Probably a scarf or something, I should have gotten more of it, it is not a huge amount. It is uber chunky, too.
You could always get another skein, and if the color lots doesn’t match just rotate each color out every so often.
Trufax, it was cheap at Miguel’s. Miguels up here are difficult to get to sans car, but there’s one within walking distance of where I’m moving to. (oh teh noes!)
Some days I feel like my entire life is a ball of tangled yarn…so it IS important to have patience, and keep on, a little at a time. Glad you got yours done.
A friend of mine had a tangled mess of very fine yarn, not quite lace weight, but a bit smaller than sock yarn. It had lovely colors and she was going to toss it, it was so badly tangled. i talked her into letting me work on it and was able (after a couple of days work, with many ‘time outs’) to get it rolled into a soft ball. It was an exercise to help me practice patience. linknit41