February 12, 2006
Unraveling Nation
Some quite good unraveling this weekend! A visit to the thrift store yeilded a few huge, nearly new sweaters. I do enjoy unraveling sweaters for yarn. Its not that I need the yarn, or need to save money on yarn, its more like the thrill of breaking down something unusuable (at least by me) into usable parts. Also, since the sweaters are so inexpensive, I feel more free to experiment with the resulting yarn.
First up, this humongous men's XL sweater from J Crew. Just a little bit worn, and nice bulky-weight wool. About 4 stitches to the inch, very soft brown wool.
Next, this brand new cotton sweater. It still had the new tags, and obviously never worn. dk-weight cotton. Maybe I'll try dyeing cotton, or maybe knit a white sweater from it.
Another new with tags sweater is this cotton/silk one. The yarn reminds me of Rowan Summer Tweed. Its a woman's XL, so lots of yarn there.
After a few hours, a new understanding of crochet seams, and some high-quality episodes of LOST later, a whole new yarn stash!
Comments (24)
Wow! That's some great yarn!
Posted by Scout | February 12, 2006 4:09 PM
Posted on February 12, 2006 16:09
What a find!
I think I need to go to the thrift store...
Posted by Carrie | February 12, 2006 4:30 PM
Posted on February 12, 2006 16:30
Great yarn! Did you get long lengths of yarn when you unraveled the sweaters? I unraveled an old Gap sweater once and it was made up of all these short pieces only a few meters long.
Posted by Kristin | February 12, 2006 4:37 PM
Posted on February 12, 2006 16:37
Oh, that cotton-silk yarn looks nice!
Posted by Chris | February 12, 2006 4:40 PM
Posted on February 12, 2006 16:40
yes! so great. what thrifts store did you get these from? somewhere in the city? (i haven't found a very solid thrift store around here yet) and i'm a whore for the recycling
Posted by j a r e d | February 12, 2006 5:35 PM
Posted on February 12, 2006 17:35
Oooh, la la, good times! I think that cotton silk is very interesting.
Posted by Karma | February 12, 2006 6:02 PM
Posted on February 12, 2006 18:02
You have some pretty cool thrift stores near you. They actually have stuff from J. Crew and J.Jill! What great finds.
Posted by Jessica | February 12, 2006 6:50 PM
Posted on February 12, 2006 18:50
yummy colors!
Posted by D R E W | February 12, 2006 9:09 PM
Posted on February 12, 2006 21:09
I read about people doing that, and had grand plans of doing it myself. In fact, I found the perfect 2X man's sweater at Goodwill. 100% wool, beautiful blue. The night I bought it, though, it was extremely cold in my house, and the sweater was close, so I thought, "Oh, I'll just pull it on for now." I ended up liking it so much that I never frogged the thing.
I did, however, just buy a skirt from Goodwill (size 16, ankle length, pleated, and 100% wool) just so I could take it apart and reuse the fabric. Only a couple people really thought I was off my rocker when I told them ;)
Posted by Sock Pal | February 13, 2006 2:08 AM
Posted on February 13, 2006 02:08
Wow, good for you! How do you know which sweaters to pick to unravel????
Posted by Debbie | February 13, 2006 6:49 AM
Posted on February 13, 2006 06:49
Nice! I did a thrift store run a few weeks back and scored a few too - I love the J Jill one - yummy yarn! (I think I used to own a sweater like the J Crew one but in purple....)
Posted by Stacey | February 13, 2006 9:15 AM
Posted on February 13, 2006 09:15
Oooh, fun. It looks like you have some great yarn to experiment with.
Posted by Stephanie | February 13, 2006 10:56 AM
Posted on February 13, 2006 10:56
Nice score! Problem about where I live is that there are so many crafty people raiding thrift stores all the time, it's rare to find good stuff.
Posted by Steph | February 13, 2006 1:46 PM
Posted on February 13, 2006 13:46
I've got to make a trip to the thrift store again - last time all I could find was acrylic!
Posted by Marie | February 13, 2006 4:21 PM
Posted on February 13, 2006 16:21
Don't you love it? My only problem is finding sweaters with a big enough gauge! You lucked out.
Posted by Christie | February 13, 2006 5:15 PM
Posted on February 13, 2006 17:15
Thweeeeet. How do you tell whether a sweater is unravelable or not? I have an orange one that I hate but it might look good if it were reborn as socks.
Posted by Maisie | February 13, 2006 5:30 PM
Posted on February 13, 2006 17:30
I work at Webs and have learned that there are only so many mills out there, which means if a yarn reminds you of another, it's could actually be from the same mill. For instance:
http://www.yarn.com/yarns-knitting/brorasoftspun.html
And I'm convinced that our Everett Silk is identical to Summer Tweed:
http://www.yarn.com/yarns/silk-everett.html
It's fun to play yarn detective...
Posted by Cirilia | February 13, 2006 7:26 PM
Posted on February 13, 2006 19:26
I woke up dreaming of unraveling thrift store sweaters and my husband telling me I was nuts. Really must go trolling through my local thrift stores.
Posted by Debbie | February 14, 2006 7:05 AM
Posted on February 14, 2006 07:05
That is just so cool!
Posted by trek | February 14, 2006 8:56 AM
Posted on February 14, 2006 08:56
Amazing! Can't wait to see what you make of the yarn!
Posted by Julia | February 14, 2006 5:15 PM
Posted on February 14, 2006 17:15
great sweaters from the thrift store! I can't say that I have seen any that nice at my local thrift store.
rowan
Posted by rowan | February 14, 2006 8:47 PM
Posted on February 14, 2006 20:47
Good to know I'm not alone in the world of unravelling sweaters. I tend to find an insane amount of angora (usually with enough halo that I can comb off and probably spin another frigging sweater!), but I managed to find some nice sport-weight cashmere once.
Thrift store sweaters are a fantastic way to acquire new yearns. I love it! (Not to mention a quick way to make a couple of bucks on eBay! Check the price that a sweater's worth of laceweight cashmere is going for there! O_O)
Posted by Winter | March 21, 2006 4:53 PM
Posted on March 21, 2006 16:53
This is SO COOL :)
Posted by Debi | April 21, 2006 2:48 PM
Posted on April 21, 2006 14:48
It's so funny, I found that exact same sweater at a thrift store and unraveled it too. Same brown color, same size. I'm using the yarn to make Avast from Knitty.com. Are you sure it's bulky weight? I thought it was worsted.
Posted by Danny C | April 25, 2007 12:57 AM
Posted on April 25, 2007 00:57