Waste Not Want Not Wednesday: New Life For a Sweater

Picked up this name brand sweater thrifting. It was partially felted by the previous owner. I put it through the wash to see what the result would be. It came out the perfect size for my daughter, but the bottom edge and sleeve edges were sort of lettuced and the neckline was too tight to go over a head.



Solution? Break out the serger and fully lettuce them. I couldn't decide whether to use matching or contrasting thread. When I uncovered the machine I found it already threaded with this pretty blue and thought the finished result would be nice with jeans, so I went with it.



The serging cut off the tight portion of the neck and prettied up the other edges. What do you think of it?

Waste Not Want Not Wednesday: Delicious Yarn From a Thrifted Sweater

I picked up this gorgeous alpaca/wool, name brand sweater at Salvation Army for $2.25. The moment I saw it I turned it inside out in order to gauge the possibility of unraveling it and was thrilled to find the right kind of seams. Yay!



The seams came apart like a dream! They'd been joined with a yarn of a slightly different color which meant it was simple to snip them free without concerning myself I would accidentally snip something I shouldn't.

As you can see, the added design element was 'sewn' on. I snipped off the knot shown in the photo above and easily pulled it out.



I thought the rest of the unraveling would go just as smoothly. Boy was I wrong. Not being a knitter I simply had no clue of the intricacies of putting together a patterned sweater. As you see above, the front panel is made up of three parts woven together. So it was frog one side, untwist from center yarn, frog center yarn, untwist from other side of yarn, frog second side, repeat. I won't lie, I thought that was tedious. Then I got to the arms/back, none of which had any design, but that didn't mean the parts were knit in a single panel either.

It took almost an entire morning and afternoon to unravel this sweater.




Here you can see the results. With the sweater being a men's large I sure did get a nice quantity of yarn. I'm hoping to get a double layer hat plus a single layer hat out of it. Just two days before I found this sweater to unravel hubby ruined his nice, heavy, double layer alpaca hat so he definitely needs a new one. I think I'll get started on this project today. Despite the frogging being so much work, the yarn is just gorgeous and I think it was worth all the effort.

Yummy Scarf

Yes, I know it is still summer - but not for long. Last year we took a wonderful trip to Ireland. Not being one for bringing back useless tchochkes, my mementoes of the trip were two - a hooded sweatshirt purchased for use on the trip (this was planned ahead of time to save packing space) and a hank of red wool yarn I found on clearance at Blarney Woolen Mills. It cost 5 Euro at a time when the Euro was valued at $1.60, making the cost of this scarf $8.00.

I've had the yarn around, admiring and loving it for quite some time until it told me a few days ago it was ready to be a scarf...and once the funky scarf felts into something different I'll use the fabric in a DIY clothing project.

I really love it and look forward to using it in whatever form for a long time to come. It holds a wonderful memory.