I am going to just give the hightlights. My friend gave me a hank of cashmere as a gift. My husband made me an awesome yarn swift, but we didn’t have a ball winder, so we used a drill and a tp roll. It worked great. After a second attempt on winding a 1 ply skein of alpaca that had 1475 yards on it (what a mess), a bought a ball winder. I tried winding the cashmere into a ball only to have the middle and outside collapse together into an indiscernable mess. I can’t find a end, nothing is coming undone, and I need suggestions. What to do you do with a tangled mass of yarn? This is a 48.00 skein of yarn, so not exactly a throw away. :help: 
:help:
Can you find an outside end? Or maybe cut on the outside? Then wind it again, holding the ball in your hands, but this time when you take it off, make sure you hold the yarn that’s across the slot so you have the center pull.
Well, I tried that, and it just made it worse. I can’t believe this… it’s laying there…tangled and crying…
if youwere closer I would offer to untangle it, I get a little monk about such things, and I make my own center pull balls without a ball winder
Sorry I M not close enough to help
ecb
I would grab what I think is the middle and hold yarn in left hand and SLOWLY pull out what you think is the middle.As soon as you get a little part out put the bigger yarn ball down and start to pull the small ball the same way. Just keep pulling smaller sections out, just don’t pull it tight.This is so hard to explain but I have done it this way many times.
Oh hell just send me the mess and I’ll fix it for ya
Thank you all for your help. Julie, I would not wish the tangled skein on you. The center isn’t even the center any more. The outside has collapsed on itself like a dying star, and I am ready to turn it into a very expensive cat toy, and get a fresh new skein. If you have a skein that is beyond helping, do you still try to help it, or do you just start anew/
I think with a yarn that expensive I’d really, really try to work with it. Taking the end and going under and over and whatever you need to do. If all else fails though I’d just toss it and get a new one.
Before throwing it you could try cutting out bits and tieing them up again if you’ve learnt to accept knots and know how to work with them.
Or, you could send it to me. But don’t throw it.
good god - don’t throw it away! I’d get it unknotted for you, just to play with the cashmere!
Maybe if you just take it one bit at a time, enjoy the feeling of it as you handle it, and cut the very toughest spots. Do only as much at a time so you don’t get frustrated … when my stuff has gotten tangled, sometimes working, putting it down, working, putting it down has worked well - and it wasn’t even cashmere!
Patience … good luck!
I always TRY but mohair is so fuzzy I’m sure it is twisted up bad.Try,what ya got to loose except your mind.
No really if you want to send it to me I will certainly give it a try.Just pm me
It also helps to wind whichever end you find into a ball while you’re untangling. That way you can pass the ball through the knots instead of constantly pulling through yards and yards of yarn.
I’d definitely stick with it. $45 is a lot of money!
Mrspotter-tru,
I feel for you! I was coming on here to write a post called “I’ll Never Buy Another Hank of Yarn” because the exact same thing happened to me last night. I carefully slid the ball band off and within 0.5 seconds I had an unholy wad of yarn. :shock: Your descriptions are very apt and I would have laughed if I didn’t know what you were talking about.
After three hours of work, only managing to untangle and wind up a 2-inch diameter ball, I suspect that all you/we can do is slowly untangle it, and it’s going to take hours. I would do this, if I were you, even if it’s just an hour or two each evening. I plan to attack it again this evening and do some more.
I did test another, identical hank I had, and I had no such problem. :shrug:
I have this issue all the time. For some reason I can not make a center pull ball to save my life. So I save lots of papertowel and TP rolls. I just keep pulling on a scetion till I can’t anymore and if I haven’t found an end I pull on a different section and keep going till I find and end. Once I do I start re-rolling it onto a TP roll and just slowly start to untangle. My favorite is when I’m doing an intarsa project and the balls get tangled. Not that keeping everything straight is hard enough on its own, but then I have to keep untangling all of my different balls on their own…:passedout:
Okay -
I will not give up my friends. Either I or someone more skilled then I will untangle it. I am inspired!
How’s it going? Any progress?
It might sound like utter madness, but have you tried jsut picking it up and … shaking it?
I had a horribly horribly tangles skein and got anoyed and picked it up by only a couple of strands and shook it (possibly while ranting and raving and my then boyfreind) It helped loosen it up and some bits sort of fell undone. because it wasnt so tighly wound any mor i found it easier to find bits to work on.
Also dont forget that a tangled ball of yarn has no logical pattern to it so you cant use logic to tackle it. There is no need to start at on end i hav found, just start with whichever part is closer and nearest and start to unravel it from there. eventually you find somewhere to go.
good luck.
I’m sure this won’t help, but I found an interesting article:
The Science of Knots Unraveled
Tangled telephone cords and electronic cables that come to resemble bird nests can frazzle even the most stoic person. Now researchers have unraveled the mystery behind how such knots form.
Two physicists used string-tumbling experiments and mathematical models to create a step-by-step recipe for knot formation and determined which factors cause the knottiest knots. Their research, published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sheds light on an everyday phenomenon about which little was known beyond the madness it incites.
While there is no magical knot buster, Smith advised what all sailors, cowboys, electricians, sewers and knitters know: to avoid tangles, keep a cord or string tied in a coil so it can’t move.
I have brought the nest of madness to work. It is sitting on my desk, and I am torn between fixing it on my own, or sending it to my most awesome volunteer. I haven’t thought about just shaking it though. That is an interesting suggestion. I will have to try that.