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Recycling Yarn

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I found a lilac cardigan in a charity shop that wasn’t really my style – or my preferred shade of purple. It was just dull. Little sleeves with ribbing at the bottom, and more ribbing around the base of the body. The rest was garter stitch. I would have left it for somebody else, but it had a couple of marks on it, so was very low-priced, and when I looked at the label, I saw that it was a cashmere and silk blend. Ding! Yes please! So I took it home, washed it to get the musty smell it had out, and started to unravel it.

The best instructions that I could find come courtesy of Dawn at My Virtual Sanity. There are a number of different websites and blog posts about recycling yarn, but I found this post had the most helpful photographs and detailed information. The author actually recycles yarn for resale, so that was encouraging.

It took me a few days to get through the entire cardigan, because the repetitive winding movement made my hands ache after a little while and I had to keep resting. But I persevered, and was rewarded with several balls of luxury yarn at a low cost. I’m still not sure about the colour, I’m considering dying it Dylon’s Burlesque Red, but I will wait until I knit it up into a new garment and see what it looks like. I’m not sure how dark the yarn will go when it dyes, as the Dylon website says silk and wool come out a lighter shade.

The yarn is light fingering weight (3 ply) so I’m reluctant to try knitting it into another cardigan as that would take ages and be quite repetitive, plus I’m not sure that I have enough yarn left for that. I had to lose quite a lot because the buttonholes had been cut into the fabric, and the cardigan only had short sleeves to begin with.

I searched Ravelry for appropriate patterns, and when I saw the Travelling Woman shawl I gasped. It’s so pretty, and I think it would look lovely in red. Or purpleish pink, however the yarn turns out. I think I’ll give that a go, unless anyone reading this has any suggestions?

Monday…errr…Tuesday Amusements 7

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I had so much original content planned for last week and this week, but then I got a cold. Colds, like all other illness, zap my creativity and make me kind of stupid. I have regaling my friends and family almost daily with stories about how I couldn’t find things I’d put down or confused words. It’s been taking me an especially long time to notice puns, in particular.

Whilst eating as much garlic as possible and drinking loads of hot water I have been spending a lot of time catching up on reading blogs. I got through quite a lot of my 1000+ post backlog in Google Reader. I also revisited the folder in which I bookmark links that I want to share, and selected some of the best for you today. Now let’s see if I’m well enough to make this more than just readable.

Getting Crafty

My hands have been too full with tissues for me to actually make anything; the Citron shawl I started in January has been on pause for a while. I’m going to be done with it soon, though it’s going to be a lot smaller than the pattern because I don’t have enough of the yarn I decided to use. I’ve enjoyed the pattern so I might make another when I get some more yarn.

I have been in the mood for crafting though. I don’t make enough. I have a few skeins of embroidery thread, boxes of beads, masses of ideas and tons of tutorials bookmarked but like everything else my hobbies have fallen by the wayside as I try to finish my novel. I’ve been longing for spring, I really want a proper summer this year, and this butterfly headband would get me in the mood. Personally I’d tone it down a little for everyday wear. I’m thinking one or two purple-and-black butterflies on a thin headband.

We get a large number of lampshades donated to the charity shop I volunteer at, but unfortunately very few of them are small enough to use like Gwen does to make this “dainty Victorian-ish hat“. Otherwise I’d be breaking out the purple paints and ribbon ASAP.

I can never find a safety pin when I want one, and I think the only ones we’ve got in my house are tiny and gold, so I’d have to make a special tip out to stock up before I made this Tom Binns-inspired safety pin necklace. I think you could apply the general idea to all sorts of other accessories, a big safety pin brooch would be especially cool. Plus you could thread beads on the safety pins! Oooh! I am definitely going to do this. If you want something a bit softer, this t-shirt necklace requires only the ability to use scissors and follow instructions.

Cute Creatures

Let’s take a break from all that hard work considering the crafty possibilities and enjoy Dee’s selection of 13 Unbelievably Adorable Animal Photos.

Useful Things Entertaining Things Etcetera

Oh, what’s that I hear? It’s the sign of my imagination yawning. Too tired to come up with a better title for this section.

If you’ve been reading this blog a while, you might remember my review of the exhibition Between the Covers: Women’s Magazines and their Readers at the Women’s Library. Their current main exhibition is called Ms Understood: Women’s Liberation in 1970’s Britain, and I haven’t had an opportunity to visit it yet, but after reading Katie’s review at Fat Quarter, I’ll make sure to go along before it closes on the 17th April.

Recently I have realised that my upper body strength has been vanishing steadily. I can’t lift food shopping bags high anymore. When I tried to do the initial test for the one hundred push ups training programme I couldn’t manage two. I used to be able to do ten or more! I think I’m going to have to do the whole thing, with “bench” push ups to try to get myself back to normal and hopefully better.

Finally, I suggest that in the spirit of Spring Cleaning and all that, you choose yourself a new desktop wallpaper for March from Smashing Magazine’s fabulous selection. There are so many I liked that I’ll probably end up changing them every few days.