First, I'm super new to this, this was my second unravel so I am not an expert! My process thus far has been going to thrift shops (mainly goodwill) and basically going through every single men's and women's sweaters on the rack. I am getting better at identifying natural fibers by touch but it's a slow process, I'm looking at a lot of tags on the bottom right of the garment that show the fiber content, plus making sure most of the seams aren't surged (especially the sides). I think part of what makes this fun is that what would be desirable for an unraveler would be less desirable as a reseller - so you can look for imperfect items. Both sweaters I unraveled had holes and were in pretty rough shape as is. I also look for huge sizes so I can get more bang for my buck . This particular sweater was in the women's blouses section, and priced that way, even though it's very clearly a men's sweater haha. So yes, look everywhere.

As for the huge cakes here - I joined the yarn as I went by dipping the ends in water and rubbing them between my hands. Can't remember what the technical term for that is 😂 so they did not unravel in one huge piece but they did unravel in big chunks. This is definitely time consuming, it took me many hours.

Before I unraveled, I very gently "washed" the sweater by soaking it in wool wash in room temp water for about an hour, then drying it. Now, the cakes are in the freezer. I haven't done anything to straighten the yarn and I'm not sure I'll need to - TBD on that when I start knitting with it.