Tips and Tricks for Devious Knitters: Testing Yarn for Color-Fastness

Here are two questions with one great answer:

1.) What do you do with your yarn ties after removing them from the hank, other than throwing them away?

2.) Is there an easy way to check for color-fastness before I start knitting with a yarn?

Why yes, there is, and it involves those ties you just cut off your hank!

When I received the mini skeins for my Christmas Sock-ing Class from Tina’s Toasty Toes I wanted to make really sure that the red and green weren’t going to bleed onto the undyed natural yarn. (Tina is awesome and she does a beautiful job dying and rinsing her yarn, but I wanted to make extra sure before I led you all down a primrose path. Trust but verify.)

Before I knit up a single stitch, I took the yarn ties — making sure they were the same yarn as the rest of the skein of course — and tied each of the colors around a bit of the natural.

Then I treated it just as I’m going to treat the finished object: I put some lukewarm water in a bowl with a little drizzle of Soak, and popped my yarn bundle on top of that.

I let them settle into the water for about 20 minutes, then put them on a towel, rolled it, and stepped on it to squeeze the moisture out. I let them dry for a few hours, then untied them and checked them carefully.

The end result: Yarn that is the same color it was when it went into the water, and water in the bowl that remained clear. We are good to go with our Christmas stockings, folks!

(If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, check my earlier post about my upcoming Christmas Sock-ing Class. There are still a few spots left, and a few remaining kits of Tina’s fabulous limited-edition mini skein kits!)