Knot All Yarns Are Perfect

Knot all yarns are perfect and that's ok :)

During the machine manufacturing of a raw material into a ball of yarn, many intermediate production steps are made.

The production of a yarn is not a continuous process.

For some of the intermediate steps, the yarn must be knotted on.

Depending on the effect and the dyeing process, the technically required number of knots per set weight can vary. Even with today's state of the art techniques, knots in the yarn cannot be entirely avoided and a certain number of knots must be tolerated.

One or two knots in a 50g yarn ball lie within the tolerance specifications and are industry standards.

The Australian Wool Store Quality Control Process....

Hand dyed yarns are dyed to order. 

This is a process that involves reskeining of yarn, soaking, dyeing, drying, skeining again, twisting, labelling, packaging and finally posting.

Every skein of hand dyed yarn is manually re-skeined and checked for knots, joins and spinning faults prior to dyeing.

Commercially dyed yarns are a much quicker process. The yarn is picked, packed and posted.

Every ball of commercially dyed yarn is inspected both visually and manually. If we can see or feel a knot then that ball is removed from your order.

'Faulty' yarn i.e. yarn with knots, damaged labels, the wrong dye order etc are placed in a separate container. When that container is full I create 'Fun Bags of Yarn' and sell them at 50% off the retail price. 

The following is my opinion only......

In order for a factory to guarantee that every ball of yarn produced is knot free there has to be waste. 

I am uncomfortable with that waste and choose not to be part of the problem.

In my humble opinion, a knot or join in a ball of yarn is not insurmountable and, whilst it can be annoying, rarely affects the finish of the final garment.

For information regarding the effects that textile waste has on our planet please explore the topic online.