7 Tips for Crocheting with Shiny Yarn
If you have ever considered just trying out shiny yarn, maybe for crocheting and for amigurumis, I have some tips and suggestions for you! Especially if you have never used it before. The first time I used it, it kept tangling up and getting caught together. I literally had to crochet then cut, crochet then cut and repeat to get it done, unraveling was such a nightmare too. So these are some of my tips and tricks (after a fair bit of destroyed yarn) to dealing with shiny yarn:
1) Use it more for trimmings rather than the whole Amigurumi.
This really depends on what you are making but shiny yarn makes for great trimmings or they make pretty edges too. To be honest, when the whole amigurumi is made with shiny yarn, it does not turn out too cute. Just have a look at the Cyborg I made below, making the whole body was no mean feat dealing with wiry strings and the end result I felt was none too pretty. So I mostly use gold or silver yarn now mainly to complement other parts of my amigurumi, like the helmet above that I made for Gimli, the trimmings made it look cuter!
2) Do a mock up of Amigurumi pattern in other colours first and once finalized then switch to silver.
I do this often especially when I’m experimenting with a new pattern. Crocheting and frogging in silver is a big no no. The fraying that occurs is almost irreversible and frogging it basically destroys the yarn. So only proceed with the pattern when you are happy with the final stitches. So the mock up I use it in light grey for silver and yellow for gold, once I’m happy with the final pattern and when I know I’m making the final piece, I switch back to the shiny yarns.
3) Focus on crocheting, this is one yarn you can’t watch TV and crochet at the same time.
I think all crocheters are guilty of this at some point in time. After all, Netflix and crochet really go together :). If you intend to use silver yarn for parts of the ami, just pause the TV. If you intend to make the whole amigurumi out of silver yarn, just focus on the task at hand. If you get one stitch off once your eye is on the television and you look down to frog it - uh-oh.
4) Try mixing it up with other regular yarn colours.
That’s what I try to do nowadays, to mix up colours together to get a nice palette, which means the yarn usage for the shiny yarn goes down. There is sometimes still some entanglement but untangling it with other colours is easier than with itself. This sort of goes hand in hand with my first point on using it more for trimmings.
5) Loosen the crochet tension.
This tip really helps because when you are inserting hook and the tension is really tight, it’s like scraping the hook against the yarn. It is not the regular soft yarn you are used to, it is more wiry so the looser the stitches, the easier it is to crochet. Down the tension a notch more than you usually crochet with when you are doing it with regular cotton or acrylic yarn and it makes crocheting with shiny yarn easier.
6) Untangle it as you crochet along.
This is equally important. Make sure the yarn is untangled as you progress with the project. It’s not possible to crochet until you hit a knot and hope to untangle it while it is attached to your project. Which brings me to my next point.
7) If it gets tangled, don’t untangle it, just cut it!
That’s my general recommendation. If it feels stuck, cut it. If it is beginning to tangle up, cut it. Cut it and restart again with a new untangled silver yarn string and just conceal the cut ends. If you don’t, and the minute it starts to tangle and you yank it tight, the knots are almost impossible to unravel.
Hope these tips help! If not you will end up like me with this mess of silver yarn in my stash. If you are looking for similar silver yarn, you can find it here. Note they do tend to be more expensive than regular yarn, and do not get those pseudo grey shiny ones, they just don’t cut it!
I did use some silver and gold yarn for my upcoming Fantasy collection, a little here and there so do stay tuned for it!
