Recycled Knits

I've got kids that wear through clothes like it's going out of style... They get stained, holey and too small all the time. As I was sorting what winter clothes would get packed and which ones were done for I remembered an e-newsletter I gotten around Earth Day that talked about knitting with recycled materials. So, instead of trashing the worn out stuff, I decided to cut it up into strips and try knitting with it.

My first project was with two pairs of holey jeans. I wasn't sure what I was making, I just had a couple ideas in mind. I tried a couple different size needles and ended up having to use my size 50 needles because the jean was too thick for anything else. I was hoping to make a bag of some sort, but the jeans I had didn't go that far. I ended up with a longer cowl-ish, necklace-ish thing. Haha... I was thinking if I add some flashy embellishments it could fit in on Etsy. So, while not what I had in mind, it's certainly not a failure either.

Next I had a pair of PJs that were too small for my daughter. I was able to make a cute little lightweight scarf for her. She thought it was hilarious because she could have people touch what they thought was a scarf and then tell them it was her pjs :-)

So, after cutting and knitting a couple of items I learned some things about working with recycled materials. The most important is to cut out all the seams, pockets, and lumpy parts. I tried working with the seams on my first two and came across two problems. The first being that, especially with jean, it's just too lumpy. Secondly, with the pjs, the seams can become unraveled during knitting and leave you with a hole.

After I cut out all the lumpy parts I start cutting my strips. I try to make the longest continuous piece possible, using the "z" way of back and forth cutting. When I have all my strips I make a ball out of it, just putting ends of strips together, not knotting them together.

I've started on my first unraveling too. The yarn is pretty thin, it was quite difficult to find a starting point, and the process itself is very tedious. I'm not sure how many more unraveling's I'll be doing because my fingers are starting to hurt!

Windy City Twist

Finally starting to twist, might work out well after all... This twisty scarf was not an easy start. I began using a pattern that worked the length of the scarf, but I didn't have large enough needles. I tried to compensate by doubling the cast on stitches and was at 800 stitches on the circ needles when they broke! I then had a knotted mess of yarn... I took two days to get started and another two to unknot the mess!

I'm now two days into this version knitting across... I was a little worried as I didn't see how this would start to twist, but I've gotten to a point where I'm seeing it now. I'm just hoping I can finish it in less than a week so I'll have it for my trip to the Windy City!

Floppy Beige Bucket

Well, this one turned out different than I'd imagined! I found the pattern on ravelry.com for a "bucket" hat but my yarn seemed quite a bit thinner than in the pattern, so instead of CO96, I did 156. After completing the brim (which is twice what you see, it is turned under) I came to realize this might be a little too big... so I started to correct. I k8, k2tog 12 times after knitting 3 rows, about 4 times. I then knit until the "body" of the hat was about 4 inches, at which point I started the decreases for the top. Around there I noticed my correction didn't help much but to make this look like a pancake! My fix was to take a piece of yarn and string it through where the brim meets the body and pull. I took it in to where it fit snuggly and then, voila! Added a little flower from my mother's day card and it's not too shabby... it's just more like a floppy sunhat now :-)

You can find the original pattern by going to the make1yarns website.

Aargh....

Already hitting a set back :-(

I have just about gotten through my first hank out of six and as I realize this and look at my progress I am not happy... I realize knitting is not always done because it is cheap, but come on! Even if you just put it in terms of how many hanks and not money... I've got about 2 inches knit out of a hank. I measured myself and approximate I'll need 17 inches to get to the armpits and somewhere around another 8 inches to finish it completely. That works out to needing 12 hanks! This is one darn expensive tank top!!! And that's with the reasonably priced yarn...

I'm now on the fence as to what to do... start over with a different spin? Just give up and go buy more before I leave here so I get the same lot? Just keep going, hope for the best and figure it out when I get to the problem? Which would most likely end up causing more problems in the terms of what yarn to get???

AARGH!