Yarn Detective
Yarn on a Cone: A Word of Caution
I am a huge fan of buying yarn on cones to knit with. The yardage is vast; there’s no winding; there are fewer ends to weave in; and (sometimes) it’s cheaper.
Plus, I love how cones look all lined up on my shelf. It makes me feel like a fancy fiber artist.
Before you succumb to the siren song of coned yarn, there are things you should know. Coned yarn was made for weavers or machine knitters, not hand knitters.
Frequently, coned yarns feel and act differently from a skeined yarn, even if they are the same yarn, like the Harrisville Highland in Adobe shown above. I am completely swooning. There may be a sweater in my future.
You can see the difference between the two in this picture.
The coned yarn (top) still has spinning oils in it. It feels stiffer, looks a little compacted, and may feel sticky. Spinning oils are applied to fiber at a mill to help the fiber-to-yarn process go smoother. The oil helps the fiber glide through the spinning machines.
I knew they would be different, but I was surprised how much. The skeined yarn (bottom) feels squishy and light, and is a bit fuzzy.
At most mills, yarn on a cone is washed to release the spinning oils before it’s wound into skeins.
Harrisville Highland is one of my go-to basic yarns. It’s not buttery soft. I usually wear a shirt under my Highland sweater and am just fine. It’s a woolen spun, tweed yarn that comes in 64 (!) colors at a great price.
I have a sweater I still wear constantly that is older than my kids. I think I made it in 1995.
It’s knit from a cousin yarn of Highland that I believe is discontinued. It was Highland with tweed flecks.
To take this photo I had to grab the sweater out of the back seat of my car, where it seems to live from fall through winter, just in case I need another layer. I do not treat this sweater with the care I show some of my others but look how it has held up.
Knitting with yarn from a skein
I knit both of these swatches into a fabric that was pleasing to me. The skeined yarn (above) is 4.5 stitches to the inch, after wet blocking.
Now the cone yarn
The unfinished yarn swatch is on top; the finished yarn swatch on the bottom.
I chose my needle size for the cone yarn swatch by looking at the size of the yarn. I used a needle two sizes smaller than my first swatch and got 5 stitches to the inch before I wet blocked it.
Unfinished it felt fine. The gauge was good and worthy of a sweater. Any not-so-greatness was due to the firmness of the yarn from the spinning oil.
When I wet blocked it, the yarn swelled to 4.5 stitches per inch, but since it was knitted on smaller needles, it has the consistency of cardboard. It would not be a comfy sweater with this hand. It could stand up and run away on its own like the gingerbread man.
This is the cautionary tale of coned yarn. If you knit with it, you have to plan for a gauge change when the oil is washed out.
Left to right: Highland from a skein, off of the cone, from the cone after a soak in wool wash. The change is pretty incredible.
The change is extra dramatic because Highland is a woolen spun yarn. It’s light and lofty. Since the fibers in woolen spun yarns are less compressed in the spinning, there is more air in the structure of the yarn giving it room to puff when finished.
If you knit a coned yarn to your gauge without swatching and blocking, it could ruin your day. It most certainly will change your gauge.
What to do?
The top swatch is from a skein and the bottom is from the cone wound, washed, and caked. The gauge is the same on the same sized needles.
You can approach cone yarn in a couple of ways. You can skein the yarn from the cone, give it a soak in wool wash, let it dry, and wind it into a cake.
The top swatch is unfinished cone yarn knit on the project needles. The gauge is 4 stitches to an inch. The bottom swatch is a washed version of cone yarn on project needles, 4.5 stitches to an inch.
If that seems like a lot of extra work and goes against the fewer ends to weave in part of cone yarn knitting, you can do a double swatch.
Wash and swatch just enough yarn to determine your gauge and needle size. Then using the same size needles and stitch count, swatch with the cone yarn. This way you can see and feel the difference between the two.
Of course, you could just jump into knitting your sweater once you know the needle size you need after knitting with washed yarn—but I like having that unwashed safety swatch.
Without it I would convince myself something is wrong and likely fiddle with my knitting until I actually make it wrong, or put my knitting into time out indefinitely.
Having both swatches at hand as a reference while I work on my project lets me know all is well. I know I need that reminder right now.
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Wow, thanks for this enlightening post, Jillian. I’ve been knitting for a lot of years and I’ve always been tempted by coned yarn. But for me, the idea of winding the coned yarn into skeins (enough for, say, a sweater), washing (and drying) it, and rewinding it into cakes adds up to way, way too much work when I can get nearly the same effect just by buying skeins in the first place. Am I missing something?
I wonder why the coned yarn is better for weavers? Is it something about the texture of the yarn or is it just that having a lot of one color without numerous ends makes sense for weaving?
Thanks again for another of your fascinating posts!
As a weaver and knitter who has used the Harrisville coned yarns, I can tell you that the unwashed coned yarn goes through the heddles of the loom much easier than the washed yarn and as you say, longer lengths for winding warps.
That’s very useful information. Thank you!
Thanks KatherineM! This is all so interesting!
Wow! I learned a lot!!!! The only yarn I have on cones is a cotton blend so I’ve not run into this problem. I use it for dishcloths and crochet edgings and for colors on my shelf too!!! However, Jillian, you are a fancy fiber artist in my opinion!!! Now off to find a skein of Harrisville Highland to purchase and swatch!!! Looks lovely! Have a marvelous Monday everyone! I’m in Texas and I think I feel spring pushing winter onward so hang in there all in the cold north—- spring is on your southern horizon! Almost hate to see our cooler temps go. Have to start a tee in a cotton blend soon.
This is such a timely article for me. I bought my first cone of yarn from Jagger Spun for a Pressed Flower cardigan. I’ll definitely be washing and skeining the yarn!
Thank you for the great article as I was curious about the cone v. skein and yarn behavior. The swatches show beautiful yarn as well.
Wow!
THANK you for this heads-up!
I have cone yarns in my stash aiming towards something yet to be decided. Now I know to wash & swatch in advance!
Have you been peeking into my stash room? LOL!
Thank you VERY much for this column. I’ve been contemplating a cone’s worth of this very yarn lately assuming it was exactly like the skeined version. Good to know! Thank you for these words of enlightenment!
As always, I love your articles. They are always so informative and interesting. I love that color of Highland. The only yarn I have ever bought on a cone is 100% linen yarn. I haven’t used it yet (it’s in my queue of 1001 projects) but I assume because of the fiber I’m safe with that one.
Phew, what a timely post!
I bought some coned yarn from a small Scottish mill several years ago. It has been sitting in my stash waiting for the perfect project, so now I know what I’ll need to do when that time arrives.
Any suggestions on how long to soak in the wool wash to get the oil out? Several soaks or just one?
This was a very informative article. I am sharing it with my fabulous knitting group .
Very helpful information!!
Your column has come at a perfect time. I have both ski and cone of Harrisville design yarn that I’m knitting into a sweater. I applied mathematics to the cost of the cones and it is a similar cost as a skeins. My thought process was to incorporate any leftover threads into a lightweight wool blanket.
Both your column and the comments have been enlightening!
YES. This is such a great article. Years ago I worked in a yarn store, and we had what we THOUGHT was a great idea. It was a swatch wall, where we had some of the most popular yarns put up in cones. Then we hung scissors and encouraged people to wind off some yarn for swatching. Very quickly we saw the error of our ways when the staff knit up little sample swatches from the cones. We then added a HUGE note explaining that this was great for playing with they yarn and getting a feel for it, but it would not swatch up the same as the yarn they would buy.
Ah well. It seemed like a good idea at the time. If only we had Jillian and MDK back then. 🙂 You are, as always, the bomb!!
Wow, thanks for sharing your insights with us. I have just started to purchase yarn on a cone. I had no idea that the same yarn skeined and on a cone could be so different.
I’ve knit several sweaters with coned yarn. I swatched and washed the swatches, then knit the unwashed yarn at the gauge that I wanted. The first time was a little scary, but the sweater was fine after washing.
Very helpful information!! Always fun reading my snippets!
I’m in the “wind off a measured hank and prewash” camp. Still only two ends to weave in, and it shows me what the yarn will *really* look and feel like.
Yarn on a cone seems to be having a moment, we’ve been talking about it in my knitting circle and I’ll certainly share this article with them. I wonder if this difference is routine, like with superwash yarns (unlikely I would guess) or yarns from a weaving supplier that also actively markets their cones to knitters? Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks for this info Jillian!
This is fascinating—thank you for sharing! I have had a gorgeous green tweed cone of yarn. Who knew coned yarn was better for machine knitting? It looks so regal sitting on that cone!
There’s been a recent lively discussion of this issue in one of my Ravelry forums. I always thought I’d skein and wash until I saw a link to the J&S blog. I still may want to do the extra work. Thanks for great illustrative photos.
Great information, Jillian, thank you for doing this exploration. I’ll share your findings with my guild.