After working with my white sweater wool, which I took the time to soak and unkink, I’ve decided that I prefer its smoothness for granny squares. So, tonight is bath night for the rest of this sweater wool!
recycle: I’m also in the process of unraveling another sweater. Just because. Maybe I should start listing some in my shop!
In my creative space today (and tomorrow and the next day…) are granny squares. I had no idea how relaxing these were until I stopped making them. Then I felt a hole, like something was missing, and I realized it was clusters of double crochet!
I’m using my recycled sweater yarn for this one simply because it’s so soft and nice to work with. Whenever I start to feel stressed, I take a deep breath and grab a square.
What’s in your creative space today? Why don’t you pop on over to Kirsty’s blog and join the fun!
I’ve got some tough decisions in my creative space today. I was given this beautiful hand-knit sweater from my friend Tana. It’s big. Really big. Too big to be refashioned with my ’80s sweater tutorial. She was thinking I could use it to make a felted tote bag. I can’t bear felting it. The stitch work is so beautiful.
This is what I’m thinking: take apart the seams and make smaller bags out of the front and back each. I would serge the edges to keep them from unraveling. I really like the colorway of the yarn, which is Cascade 220. I think I might unravel the sleeves and use the wool for some granny square scarves.
What do you think? What would you do with it?
The appliqué experiment worked! My daughter wore her grandmother’s hand knit sweater this week. She loves it. She even asked her friend to feel how soft it is. Then she told me that it was too hot. Oh, well. I got a picture at least!
I know it seems like I crochet all the time now. I haven’t abandoned knitting or sewing. My daughter is going through what I call a “grabbie” phase. She’s always been very interested in my crafting, but now she’s all about touching everything. I joke that it’s like living with an octopus. There seem to be way more than two little hands trying to get at my projects.
Sewing is hard because of all of the shiny, pointy tools: pins, needles, scissors. She loves the heavy click the sewing machine on-switch makes and how the light turns on. Knitting and crochet are both difficult, too. She LOVES to pull out my needle or hook and try to do it herself. Pulling out a crochet hook isn’t that bad, but pulling out a knitting needle makes an unraveled yarny mess.
Sometimes I’m lucky to get a stretch of time when she’s playing with playdoh or concentrating hard on her letters and numbers. And there’s always that hour during Sesame Street. Until this phase is over, I’ll just grab a stack of books, sit on the floor next to her and crochet while we read.
recycle: Yes, I’m still working from my stash of recycled sweater yarn. I’m thinking about another granny square scarf. It’s snowing today, so I’m guessing I’ll get a lot of time to work on it!
I’ve been thinking about white lately. Not bright white, but ivory, soft white and ecru. I’ve been keeping my eye out at the thrift stores, but all I could seem to find was that yellowish cream. Yuck. I even strolled down the yarn aisles at craft stores, which I haven’t done in a long time. I couldn’t bring myself to buy new. Not when I had so much at home.
Then one day while I was digging around in my stash closet I saw a beautiful, un-felted Gap sweater. It was the perfect color white and so soft: wool, nylon, angora rabbit and cashmere. And it had perfect seams for unraveling (those Gap sweaters always do!)
Friday evening I used a seam ripper to carefully take apart the front, back and sleeves. Saturday evening I unraveled it with the help of my swift and ball winder. This is what I had Sunday morning.
Don’t you just love how un-knit yarn looks like ramen noodles? Usually I will just work from noodle-y yarn, but I decided to try and get some of the kinks out. I soaked each bundle in cold water for 15-30 minutes.
After soaking, I hung them up to dry. I put a few wooden blocks in plastic grocery bags to weight the yarn at the bottom.
Look at what I have now! Isn’t it beautiful? Goodwill is having their 99 cent sale this weekend. I might have to check out the sweater rack.
thrifty reuse: I bought this sweater at a garage sale for $1. Can you believe it? Here’s my favorite online tutorial for unraveling a sweater for yarn.
As soon as I hit “publish” last week on my flower pin post I decided to donate all of the proceeds from my flower pins to Doctors Without Borders. I figured I needed a few more in my shop, though. There are currently four, but I plan to make more. I’ve also created a special section for them in my shop.
recycle: These pins are crocheted from unraveled sweater wool. Remember these balls of yarn?
My daughter is a little heater. She takes after her father, who wears shorts in the winter. She’s never cold. She just wants one small blanket when she sleeps and she refuses to wear sweaters.
Her Grandmom loves to knit her sweaters, the warmer the better. Every time we talk, she expresses concern over my daughter not wearing her sweaters. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s afraid our child is really cold or she’s disappointed that all of her hard work isn’t getting worn.
I decided to do a little experiment and crocheted a flower appliqué for her pink fuzzy sweater. My daughter LOVES the flower, but when I asked her if she wanted to wear the sweater, she said no. Meanwhile, I’m wearing a sweater and bundled up in a blanket by the fireplace. Just looking at her makes me cold! I’m going to keep trying, though.
The only pink yarn in my stash was wool, so I had to make the applique easy to remove for washing. I stitched the petals on with a large piece of yarn and tied a bow in the back. It will also be easy to move to other sweaters in the future.
flower details: Flower is an Irish rose and the middle is a vintage button.
I posted over on facebook that I found a brand new cashmere sweater for $3.50 and had a request for a picture. It’s brown, super soft and fits perfectly!
I found it at my neighbor’s garage sale. I always stop by her sales because she has such cute kids clothes. (This dress was from her, too.) I was excited to find something for myself! I also came home with a few things for my daughter. I tried really hard to focus on fall and winter, but couldn’t resist this sundress!
That was Thursday. Friday I went to Neat Repeatz, which is a huge kids consignment sale. This year there were so many clothes to go through! I had good luck and came home with some nice shirts and corduroy pants.
My biggest challenge was keeping my daughter occupied while I shopped. As soon as we arrived, we headed straight for the book section. After she was done “reading” what we had picked out, I wound up getting her this little electronic Cars game. It’s pretty dumb and I really hate it, but it got us through! Hopefully it will settle at the bottom of the closet and we can donate it soon.
It’s been awhile since I’ve made a sweater bag and I had forgotten how much fun it is to work with felted wool. I especially love how you can whip it into shape with a hot iron and a little steam.
My friend Cathy LOVES tote bags. She frequently brings a thrifted sweater to knitting group and asks me to make the largest bag possible. This sweater felted up so well that I was worried it wouldn’t be big enough for her. I added denim at the bottom to give her some more room.
Cathy is on the Board of Directors for our local Sewing for Babies. She is constantly knitting and sewing the cutest baby items. That’s why she likes having lots of big, roomy totes. She also asked me to make a box bag for some of her smaller projects. Don’t you just love this fabric?
project notes: Thrifted sweater was 100% lambswool from the Gap. Their lambswool sweaters always felt nicely. Lining and box bag fabric provided by Cathy. Denim from a pair of thrifted jeans in my stash. Garage sale interfacing and zipper for the box bag.
