How Can You Get Smoke Out of Yarn?

You've been gifted yarn that has been through a fire, a cigarette, a cigar or even incense candles burning. How do you get the smoke out of the yarn is a very common question.

Smoke and yarn together in the same space is a disaster waiting to happen, as smoke isn't just a cloud; though it visually disappears, it leaves behind a residue of the ingredients that were inside the burn.

I have moved into a house where the former owners were smokers. You could tell where the pictures hung on the walls because the wall around them was tinged brown. Every wall in the house needed to be washed down and repainted. It's a big job, but unfortunately for yarn, it goes beyond the fibre's surface and embeds directly into it. That same residue is in carpets and any fibre-based material.

Yarn absorbs the smoke, and the smoke is filled with chemicals that latch onto the fibres and mix with the fibres themselves. The smoke is sticky and attaches itself. Though the yarn may not feel sticky to the touch, the smoke is pretty much glued to the fibres.

To release the smoke, the product needs to be heated back up to burn off the smoke residue, but with yarn, if you burn off the smoke, your yarn pretty much has to be burned as well.

Some Solutions

• Washing your yarn won't work so well, as the water won't get hot enough to burn off the smoke residue. You can try, and maybe you'll succeed.
• If you try washing your yarn that is still in the ball, you risk the ball's interior not fully drying, and you may end up growing mould within it.
• Sunlight can do some magic in burning off smoke residue, but it takes several days of full sunshine to reach the product. The fresh air and the heat from direct sunlight will help reduce the smell. It's reported that this can just reduce the smell but not return the yarn to its original scent.
• The risk of direct sunlight is that acrylic can degrade when exposed for too long. The lamp post is a year old outdoors. The covering peeled off in chunks as the yarn's strength depleted.

You can also try putting the yarn or project in a sealed container with baking soda to absorb the odour. It will take several weeks to be effective, though not guaranteed.

Two Final Options

You will have two options if the smoke is still bothering you.

• Find someone who is okay with the smell and wish them happy knitting or hooking.
• Toss the yarn into the garbage. I know... sucky option.

Yarn is very much like carpet and absorbs and keeps the odours. Like it or not, it's just the nature of the product.

To stay above board, I don't care if you smoke or not. That's your personal choice, but removing the smoke is very difficult, if not impossible. Do what makes you happy and enjoy your life. I used to be anti-smoking, but realized it's not my life or my business.