That Yarn · Journal

Choosing a Cone & Surplus Yarn Source — What to Look For

Buying surplus yarn well depends less on the yarn than on who curates it. Here is how to judge a source — and how we hold ourselves to it.

Once you understand why surplus and mill-end yarn is worth buying — luxury fiber, left over at the end of a production run, at a fraction of retail — a second question follows quickly: from whom? Surplus is only as good as the eye that selects it and the honesty that describes it, and those vary enormously from one source to the next.

So rather than simply making a case for ourselves, it is more useful to set out what actually separates a good cone-yarn source from a careless one. Judge any source by these, including this one.

If you are still weighing whether surplus is right for you at all, our guide to why buy surplus and mill-end yarn makes that case first.

What separates a good source from a careless one

Surplus yarn is unregulated territory. Anyone can list a cone; far fewer select and describe it with care. Four things tell them apart.

1 · The quality of the curation

Surplus ranges from luxury mill-ends to genuinely dull filler. A careless source lists whatever it acquires; a good one selects — turning away the ordinary and keeping only cones worth a maker's time, for fiber, texture, and creative potential. The value is in what a source declines to sell as much as what it offers.

2 · The honesty of the description

Surplus is, by nature, imperfect and often incompletely documented. The test of a source is what it does with that uncertainty. A careless one guesses, rounds up, or stays silent. A good one states what is known, flags what is not, and describes condition plainly — so there are no surprises when the cone arrives.

3 · The fiber knowledge behind it

Reading a mill-end cone — identifying fiber, estimating a count, knowing how it will behave — takes real knowledge. A source that understands fiber can tell you what you are buying and how to use it. One that doesn't can only pass on a box. The difference shows in every product description.

4 · The way it treats scarcity

Surplus is finite, and that shapes how a source should behave. A careless one manufactures false urgency around it. A considered one simply tells the truth: some lots will not return, and that is the nature of surplus, not a sales tactic. How a source handles scarcity reveals how it sees its customers.

The yarn is only half of it. The other half is the judgment that selected the cone and the honesty that described it. That is what you are really choosing when you choose a source.

How we hold ourselves to this

Those four standards are the ones we set for ourselves, so it is only fair to show how we meet them.

Curation over volume

Every cone offered here is chosen deliberately — for fiber quality, texture, colour, and what a maker could create with it. The aim is a considered, gallery-like selection rather than a warehouse clear-out: a smaller number of genuinely fine cones, not the largest possible pile. Many cones we come across are simply not good enough to offer, and those are the ones you never see.

Descriptions written to be trusted

Each listing describes the yarn as accurately as we can establish it — fiber, count, and condition — and where a surplus cone's specification is incomplete, we say so rather than inventing a figure. A fiber may be given as a descriptor without invented percentages until a spec sheet confirms them. The intention is that the cone that arrives is exactly the cone you expected.

Chosen with fiber knowledge

The selection is made by someone who reads fiber closely — which is why the Journal you are reading exists. The same knowledge that identifies a washi blend or judges a yak down goes into deciding which cones are worth offering and into telling you how to work with them. Our guides to yarn weight and Nm and why cone yarn blooms after washing are part of that same commitment.

Honest about scarcity

We restock with new mill-end on the 1st and 15th of each month, and we do not pretend a sold-out cone is coming back when it isn't. Some yarns don't come back — we say so plainly, not to pressure you, but because it is simply true of surplus. There are no manufactured countdowns here.

Two ways to buy

The full curated selection lives at thatyarn.com, where each cone is presented with its fiber, its story, and honest condition notes. A portion of stock is also available through That Yarn Outlet on eBay, for makers who prefer to browse and buy there. Both draw from the same curated inventory and the same standard of description.

New arrivals land on the 1st and 15th. There is no pre-launch hype and no urgency campaign — simply new cones, quietly added, announced the day they go live.

The short version

Surplus yarn is only as good as the source behind it: the eye that selected the cone, the honesty that described it, the knowledge that understood it, and the respect it shows a maker's time. Those are the things to look for in any cone-yarn source. They are also, precisely, the things we have built this one around.

The best way to see whether that is true is not to take our word for it, but to read a few product descriptions and judge for yourself.

Frequently asked questions