Abstract Stretchable strain-sensitive textiles that can detect human motion and physiological information in real time have considerable potential for application in next-generation wearable electronic devices. However, the application of such textiles has been hindered largely by their vulnerability to magnetic and electrical interference, wear and tear, and baseline drift. In this article, we report a new type of highly retractable and stretchable inductive sensor with a notable reciprocal change in inductance during stretching and recovery. Our experiments indicate that yarn sensors with a small diameter (627.4 μm) have high sensitivity (0.4 μH/%), fast response (