Untangled

The linen tank progresses and I have begun the armhole shaping. 

But actually what seems to be the greatest progress on this project so far is the rewinding of the current skein of yarn from center-pull tangle to hand-wound ball. 

Is this common for linen yarn?  I can't keep the yarn tangle free.  The balls, at least the center pull balls that I wound, keep falling apart and the yarn is just stiff enough that it grabs ahold of itself and creates wondrous rat's nests of yarn.  Some evenings it seems like more time spent untangling than actually knitting.

Last night I broke down and rewound this skein into a ball. 

I shall have to see what happens with the rest of the yarn.  The blue and light taupe can be managed, they are only used for short bits.  I have one of them in a "yarn bra" and although that keeps the outside strands of yarn from falling down and tangling, it does not seem to offer any relief to the masses of knotted yarn that pull out of the center of the skein.

Perhaps I should just rewind the second skein of taupe into a nice round ball before I begin the front of the sweater.

Comments

[Liana]

Your tank looks great, and I love your color combination. When I did my linen tank, I handwound the balls because that was my only option. I had no problem with them. Now that I am the proud owner of a ball winder, I would have used it and gotten your results, I'm sure. Nice to know there are times to just wind it by hand. Oh well, it's good exercise walking back and forth as I pull on my swift!

[Kathleen C.]

Mardel,
The tank is looking great! I recently made a scarf with some handdyed/painted linen and loved working with it. It gets very soft after washing too.
But... on the subject of a center pull ball... I checked out Amy Singer's new book, "No Sheep for You", and she categorically states that center pull balls for non-animal fiber yarns are a disaster waiting to happen. The animal hair balls stay put by dint of their grabby nature, but the slippery celulosic or silk yarns collapse and tangle.
She said to go for a hand wound ball. As you were supecting.