Harvesting Yarn from a Thrift Store Sweater

Good yarn can be expensive, especially if one is working on a large project like an afghan or a sweater.  An alternative source for yarn can be found by repurposing sweaters from your local thrift store.

I do this from time to time, whenever I'm out junking and find a suitable sweater ... rarely with a specific project in mind.  If the sweater is in decent shape, made of quality yarn (wool, cashmere, silk, etc.), and isn't abused or felted, I buy it.

The subject of this example is a 100% wool sweater from Goodwill, brand new with the original store tag, in a fantastic greenish-brownish-gray.  It's enormous ... which means that it will yield a LOT of yarn.

First thing is to disassemble the sweater by unraveling the seams.  I only buy sweaters with chain-stitched seams, which are fairly simple to identify and take apart.  

With the sweater taken apart, all that's left now is find the yarn end on each piece, work it free, unravel the pieces, and roll up the yarn,

Alice was helping.

When I'm unraveling, I roll each piece of the sweater into its own ball.  For this sweater, there is a yarn ball for each sleeve, the collar, and the front piece.  The back piece was rolled into two balls because it had a hole in it, which broke the yarn at that spot.  

How much yarn did I get from this enormous sweater, you ask?  Exactly 856 grams ... which equals seventeen 50-gram skeins, if I bought this at a yarn shop.

Before I use this yarn to make something, I will roll it into skeins and wash it ... to relax the kinks and make it easier to work with.  For now, though, it's stored away in balls, just like you see it, with the rest of my yarn stash in the sewing room, along with the label from the sweater so I remember the fiber content.  

If you're inclined to do this yourself, and you need more detailed instructions, you can find a really great tutorial HERE.

Friday Photo Dump

I have some photos in my blog file on this computer that I have been holding onto, waiting to find inspiration to work them into blog posts ... inspiration has been elusive.  I just got the idea to lump them all together into one post.  No rhyme or reason, just little slices of life and images that I was fortunate to catch in the moment.

1.  Last month, I saw a link to the Sotheby's web site with the online catalog for the estate auction of the Duchess of Devonshire.  I was so impressed by the first few pages of the catalog on my iPad that I clicked over to their online store and ordered a hard copy to savor and to have forever.  The auction was on March 2.  Click HERE for a gallery of items and results.

The portrait of the Duchess on the cover of the catalog tells me that she must have been a very unique person.  Carefully staged with ancestral portraits, sculpture, formal gown, jeweled tiara ... and flopped-out sleeping dogs.  Love it!

2.  Here is an example of what water can do when it freezes.  This antique soft-fired brick (or what's left of it) is laying near the outlet for our rain gutter, so it was saturated.  Repeated cycles of winter weather freezing and thawing completely blew it apart.  This is the power of science in action.

3.  Early in the morning, I regularly run out to the front porch with my camera or phone or iPad to try to capture colorful sunrises when I see them.  This was one of the prettiest, and I was lucky that my photo captured it nicely.

4.  I snapped this photo of Ruby the other day.  I was reading, and she was in a sunshine spot at the other end of the sofa, sound asleep.

Yes, she was snoring.

5.  While Ruby was snoozing, Dorothy was behind me on her rug in the windowsill watching birds.

6.  This is my most recent awesome thrift store purchase.  Our grandson and I went to Salvation Army last week with a load of stuff to donate, and we cruised through the store to see what we could find.  At $3, this cordless electric wine opener was worth taking a chance on.  Plugged it in and charged it overnight, and found that it works perfectly!

7.  In winter, this girl's attention turns to boots.  These are my newest.  An ad for them popped up on someone's sidebar last week, and I loved them instantly.  I went to the Country Outfitter site, the boots were on sale with free shipping, saw overwhelming favorable reviews ... add to cart ... click!  They arrived yesterday, just in time to bring them along with me to this weekend's American Rose Society Colonial District Spring Meeting.  I love them even more in person, and they are really, really comfy.

It's easy to capture little moments as they happen, with a camera phone in my purse or pocket, or an iPad at arm's length most of the time.  I get the feeling that the Photo Dump, as an easy way to share, may become a regular theme around here.

A Pretty Miraculous Thrift Store Find

I have a thing for lamps.  If I find a cool or funky lamp for a good price, it's almost as if I have an innate need to bring it home with me.   Two or more years ago while I was at Goodwill, I came across this awesome baluster lamp.

I initially thought that I would paint it to get rid of the turquoise parts.  After it sat around for a while, the turquoise began to grow on me and I decided to leave it as is ... and then I put it in the basement with the rest of my treasures, since I didn't really have a place to use one lamp.

A few weeks ago, at a different Goodwill in another town, I found this lamp.

It's the same lamp!  Looks like you're seeing double doesn't it?

Now that I have a pair of these beauties, I knew exactly what to do with them.  I figured that they would be perfect on the dresser in our master bedroom.

The shades on these lamps are ones that I already had on hand.  They are totally the wrong size and color, and they're borderline worn out, but they do the job for now.

One day I will think about what to put on that big blank wall ... eventually.

Yesterday's Thrift Store Scores

By mid-morning yesterday, I had finished all the work I intended to accomplish for the day ... so, I changed my clothes and I leaned my head into the office and told my husband, "I'm going to go waste the rest of the day.  See you later this afternoon."  

I hit a couple of antique shops, but nothing was tempting.  That's how it is since I realized that I have too much stuff ... it's hard to get in the mood to bring more stuff home, no matter how wonderful it seems.  I kept at it, and I finished my afternoon at a favorite thrift shop, spent a whole $1.50, and I got really useful stuff.

The Brighton business card holder is totally my style ... embossed stainless steel, patent leather, with a silverplated monogram that spells L-O-V-E ... $1, thank you very much.  The measuring spoons will be a spare set kept in my workshop for measuring garden chemicals ... $0.50.

For lunch, I treated myself to a McDonalds chicken wrap, large unsweet iced tea, and a small Wendy's frostie (one of my guilty pleasures), and I returned home relaxed and recharged.  

Have You Missed Me?

What a week it has been since I last posted!  So much going on ... all of which is totally positive.  Here's a quick overview to bring you up to speed.

You won't be surprised to find that I have been doing a little bit of thrifting ... and bringing home a few lucky finds.

 

I found these two large paint-by-numbers at Goodwill.  They are really well done, and the colors are lovely.

 

 

This set of Pronghorn antlers was a steal at one of my favorite shops! They are perfect over the bathroom door beside The Husband's paintings in our office.

 

 

 

This may be my best reuse of a thrift store item to date ... using an old silver-plated chafing dish holder as a plant stand to hold my Christmas Cactus.

 

 

 

Our Greyhounds Rock benefit last weekend was WONDERFUL!!  All our hard work paid off, and every part of the event went off perfectly.  (I will show more of this as soon as I get permission to use some photos ... I didn't take but a few, and most of them are lousy.)  Here's one I think you will like ... me and Fabien Cousteau, our Saturday speaker, having a bit of fun.

 

 

 

A part of almost every day is spent doing something with the roses.  Right now, I am concentrating my efforts in my basement workshop, where I have pots of cuttings sitting on shelves in the north window.

 

 

 

The cuttings are doing really well.  When Stephen Scanniello was here in September, he brought me  cuttings from 'Philadelphia', a rose he has that I have wanted for a LONG time. 

 

 

 

Four of the five Philadelphia cuttings have roots!  Earlier this morning, I planted each of them into individual pots.

 

Beautiful, healthy roots!

 

None of my summer cuttings rustled from "Mine Road Noisette" lived.  Some of them rooted, but the plants were weak and the last one died a few weeks ago.  I stopped by the mother plant last week and took some new cuttings.  (Fortunately, the road widening didn't take the rose, so it is still there to take cuttings from ... who knows for how much longer, tho.)  Part of studying unknown roses is to document them for possible future identification ... flowers, leaves, thorns, hips, etc.

 

 

 

I am working on my next project ... one that I have been anxiously waiting till this week to start ... making the drapes for our family room and dining room.  Sorry, no hints about this.  I will show them to you once they are hung, and I will give you a full tutorial as a token of my appreciation for your patience.