Plain Jane Knits Up A Storm

A few musings about my needlecraft hobbies - knitting, crocheting, quilting, & cross-stitch along with my other love, genealogy. While growing up, I used to HATE the term "Plain Jane", but when it comes to knitting & crocheting, I've realized that I really *am* a Plain Jane in that I don't use fancy yarns.

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Location: Northern Detroit Metro area, Michigan, United States

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Frogging The Night Away

I've spent the last couple nights of TV time frogging three of the wool sweaters that I purchased over the summer at garage sales. I forgot to enter these in my Excel recycled yarn database, but I'm sure that I didn't pay more than $2 each. The first one was a dark grey aran style knit in Ecuador. I wish I could take a lesson or two from the person who sewed it together because the seams were almost invisible - not much like my seams when I can't figure out a way to knit a pattern in the round and avoid them all together. Once the seams were out, the sweater unraveled nicely and I wound up with just over 33 ounces of bulky wool.

Sweater #2 was a lighter weight cream wool v-neck with stripes of cranberry, blue-grey & gold at the bottoms of the body & sleeves. Getting the sewn-on ribbing off of the neckline was touchy, but once that was done, the raglan sleeves came out easily and it didn't take long to wind everything into balls. The yarn is lighter weight - probably DK - and I wound up with 15 ounces of the cream plus small balls of the other three colors.

Sweater #3 was a challenge. It was bulky grey with a knit in design of cream, also knit in Ecuador. The sleeves were solid grey so they frogged without any problem, but the body of the sweater after I got past the front and back yokes was knit circularly with many stops & starts of yarn. There might be four or more short lengths of yarn in one row, so I lost probably 4 ounces or so until the point where the pattern was such that the two colors were carried all the way around the body. Still, I came out with 22 ounces of the grey, though most of the cream was unfortunately lost to the short lengths. Here are the spoils of my frogging efforts - the bulky greys will turn into felted bags.



On the charity knitting front, I've finished 7 black scarves to make cap and scarf sets out of caps in the bin at the Sr. Center. I also have a set from double yarn (a variegated & a solid) finished and the cap and part of the scarf of another set. I'll add those to the sidebar totals after I turn them in tomorrow. I didn't photograph the black scarves because they're boring, but I did make this small scarf as a trial run at a pattern that was donated to our group a couple weeks ago. It's more stylish than the garter stitch scarves, but I don't think it would be as warm on a cold day.



Right now, I have a total of 23 washcloths for the Cloths For Katrina project finished and most of them even have the yarn ends run in! I want to finish using up the yarn I have and get the cloths into the mail before postage goes up after the first of January. Again no photo as garter stitch washcloths do not exciting blogging make.

But Megan's sweater is finished and here's a photo to prove it. This was originally a crocheted pattern that I reworked so that it could be knit. It's made from Bernat (the turquoise) & Caron Rainbow Dreams (the Jetstream variegated). I'm not sure what brand the purple CC might be as it was in my stash. I like the way it turned out, especially the way that the seed stitch worked with the variegated yarn to produce the pattern bands. It was worked on 10½ needles - circulars, straights & double points and the only seams are the 3-needle bind-offs at the shoulders.

7 Comments:

Blogger Nana Sadie said...

Megan's sweater turned out perfectly! I love it!
And wow, those balls of yarn...recycling Queen, you are you are...Queen of Charity Knitting, too!
:)
(((hugs)))

11:54 AM  
Blogger Heather said...

knitnana is right, you are both the Queen of Recycling and the Queen of Charity Knitting. You always amaze me. I love Megan's sweater, too. Such pretty colors.

4:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Megan says "oooooooooo"

8:04 PM  
Blogger Pioggia said...

That scarf is really pretty and stylish, I think it's a great idea.

7:21 PM  
Blogger Ruinwen Dagorielle said...

Megan's sweater is really lovely. I love the colors; so bright and cheery!

Ruinwen
:)

10:46 AM  
Blogger Lorette said...

Megan's sweater is perfect! And almost-free yarn, you can't beat that.

1:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am very, very interested in how you recycle sweaters into yarn. Can you add more details about what to look for in the sweaters?

11:34 PM  

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