Pre-Rhinebeck Untangling: Yarn Saver

This is the ninth in a series of blog posts featuring the fabulous sponsors of Indie Untangled, taking place on October 17, 2025, in person in Saugerties, NY, and online. Tickets are available and selling fast!

For those of us with sizable yarn stashes — which I’m going to safely assume is most of us! — it’s an ongoing struggle to keep everything contained to a few (or more than a few) bins. Sometimes, we have to let skeins go when we’re not seeing their project potential or they’re simply no longer sparking joy.

Usually, the process goes something like this: we list our yarn for sale on Ravelry or other sites, sift through messages, dig through our bins to find the skeins we listed months ago, package them up, and then wait in line at the post office, only for the cycle to repeat itself the next time we decide to destash.

Christina Gleason launched her business, Yarn Saver, when that familiar process became too overwhelming. She’s created an amazing resource — essentially ThredUp for fiber — that takes the hassle out of pricing, messaging, and mailing things yourself, while offering straightforward payouts:

Check or Cash: 20% of your batch’s value
PayPal: 25%
Store Credit: 30%

Yarn Saver’s parent company, Finarina LLC, is certified by the State of Connecticut as an Iberian Peninsula Woman Disability Owned Small/Minority Business Enterprise, a distinction Christina proudly considers a badge of honor.

Tell me how Yarn Saver came to be?

Yarn Saver started from my own personal collection. It had grown to literally the size of a stock room for a small brick-and-mortar store. Because I was dealing with what ended up being 350+ individual product listings in various conditions, I did not have the time or stamina to handle the sales over a social media channel or a community forum. Instead, using my 20-plus year career as a web developer, I created a small e-commerce website with all the customization I needed specific to selling yarn. 

I wanted to sort by fiber weight and type of material. I wanted to offer a bulk discount if someone bought more than one of a set of 10 skeins I had of one type of yarn. I wanted it to automatically calculate shipping based on today’s rates, and offer free shipping to those who had larger orders. By doing so, it became its own standalone website. 

Friends of mine asked to add their own items to the website because it was really easy to browse through the catalog. Word got out, and I decided to open it up to the public. The time from then to today is a combination of trial and error, solidifying processes, and building a team.

If someone has never sold or donated their yarn to Yarn Saver, how does it work?

The process is simple: if you want to sell or donate, you create an online account on our website yarnsaver.com and either make a list of your items or submit a request for us to do the cataloging manually for you. We review it, and you ship it or drop it off to us in person. Once it arrives, we sanitize the items, check their condition, and pay you for the items.

The choice to request a manual review of someone’s items was in particular made for those not necessarily involved in the fiber arts. One of the big demographics that came out that I did not expect was people handling estates. I take great pride helping folks handle their loved ones’ items with care and pay them for what they have. It’s the best feeling to provide a check to someone dealing with an estate.

What type of yarn does Yarn Saver accept?

We primarily accept fibers that are in good clean condition. That includes unused skeins, balls, and cakes. Labels are preferred but not always required if the fiber content/brand/type can be identified. We also accept needles, hooks, notions, bags, tools, merchandise related to the fiber arts, and more! If it’s fiber arts related, we will take it.

Since you take donations, what happens to yarn that might not be acceptable for selling?

For yarn that is not acceptable for selling, but still in usable condition, we donate these skeins, balls, cakes, and tools to a few different groups. We have a local after school program that we send yarn and tools to so they can provide knitting and crochet tutorials for the kids, as well as material for art projects. We also have a couple of groups who knit and crochet items for those in need that we give certain types of yarn that works best for their projects.

What are some of your most popular yarn brands that you carry? 

We tend to sell quickly of Rowan, Lion Brand, Valley Yarns, Cascade Yarns, Malabrigo, Classic Elite Yarns, and various indie dyer skeins. Joann products were and are still very popular right now as folks look for those discontinued skeins.

On your website you have the statement “Creating a Yarn Lifecycle.” How important do you think it is for fiber artists or crafters to consider the “lifecycle of their yarn,” when they may have a huge stash that might never get used? 

I really love this question. As someone who once had SABLE (Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy), it was difficult to post things for sale. Some of the items I had for over a decade or longer. The yarn lifecycle is about thinking beyond the purchase. Every skein has a journey — from the mill to your stash, and ideally, into a finished project. A skein sitting on my bookshelf is like pausing that journey from completing. By passing it along, instead of hoarding stashes, we are giving the skein life in the project it was meant to be in.

Yarn Saver supports the Loose Ends Project. Can you tell us what the project is about and why you chose to support it as a business? 

The Loose Ends Project connects volunteer crafters with unfinished projects left behind when a maker passes away or can’t complete their work. The volunteers finish these items so they can be given to their intended recipients. I became a Loose Ends finisher years ago when they first started. As someone who has dealt with an unusually large amount of grief and loss, I saw an opportunity to help someone in grief have a moment of reprieve by receiving an unfinished item intended for them from their loved one. It’s a small act of charity that really costs nothing to do as a finisher, but has such a large impact on the recipient. As long as their compassionate mission continues, we will continue to support them. 

You will be at Indie Untangled accepting yarn! Can you tell us how that process will work or what customers can expect? 

Customers can have the fastest service by creating an online account with yarnsaver.com beforehand, and loading a list of their items into our system. After submitting their assessment, selecting either same-day or drop off at Indie Untangled, and getting approved, they will receive a barcode in their email (they can also access this in their account). 

Bring your barcode and your bag of items to the event. We will scan your barcode, take your items, and provide a valuation and cash/PayPal/credit same-day, as long as your assessment meets the same-day requirements. If you are looking to just drop off your items, you can do so as well, and your items will go through our standard process after the event.

Have you ever received a yarn through Yarn Saver that you loved so much that you had to keep it for yourself? 

There was some beautiful Blue Sky Alpacas Royal Limited Edition skeins that came through in like new condition, but fortunately, I am allergic to alpaca, so I told myself I could not keep them. Someone did eventually buy them, and I’m happy to see them go to a new home!

What’s currently on your needles? 

I have been knitting, on and off, the shawl pattern Arachne by Verily Knits in Plies & Hellhounds Penny, colorways Nightmares +10 and Flower Moon. I need to make more time for my own knitting!