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Anyone who knows my thrift shop habits knows I am incapable of leaving cashmere sweaters on the rack, especially if they’re cheap. As such, I’ve amassed quite a collection. Mostly even in the same color palette. So I made a blanket:
It is as soft as a cloud and nice and big. There’s no sense of scale in the above picture, but it is the size of my queen bed. Perfect for wrapping myself in in the dead of winter. Or when the AC is too high. Y’know.
(That’s Joe back there, playing the ever obliging boyfriend)
I made some improvements from the last cashmere quilt I made. Instead of overlapping the squares, I put them right sides together and sewed a proper seam. I also used a straight stick instead of a zigzag. This actually seemed to reduce the amount of lettuce edge I got. I also used squares of varying sizes. This was accomplished by doing absolutely no measuring whatsoever. I basically cut the biggest square I could from each sweater piece.
Different sized squares meant I couldn’t really sew them into strips. I ended up doing some kind of wonky log cabin thing, at least until the blanket got wide enough. Then I pretty much just sewed strips the best I could. I sometimes had to get a little creative when I didn’t have any squares that were big enough.
I have a fair amount of leftover bits of cashmere. I might piece together a pair of mittens and a hat. I would make a pillow but I already have way too many pillows. I might offer what’s left when I’m out of things I want to make to the Unravelers group on Ravelry and someone can use it for whatever. And then I will snuggle the hell out of my blanket. SO SOFT.
So remember that project I started after Counterpane that I was 80% through? Well it’s done now, natch. I have a lot of time. So yeah.
Pattern: Veyla from Whimsical Little Knits 2
Yarn: Recycled cashmere, navajo plied
Needles: US 3/3.25 mm dpns
In addition to being completely adorable and soft and warm and beautiful, these mitts were also extremely fast and fun to knit. The cuff is interesting and there isn’t much plain stockinette. Definitely kept my attention.
So I will have a lovely pair of mitts when the weather gets around to cooling. Especially if I have to commute on the Metro. You know, when I eventually get a job. Cause I need one. Anyway, pretty.
GUYS GUYS GUYS I FINISHED ALL MY EXAMS FOR COLLEGE AND I’M GRADUATING IN A WEEK FROM TOMORROW. More on that later. Just so you know, expect my writing this week to be a little… less than perfect. Generally it’s safe to blame vodka but Thursday is Cinco de Mayo, so you should probably blame Tequila. Cause I’m DONE WITH COLLEGE and that means it is CELEBRATION TIME.
Anyway, In case you were wondering, I have been knitting. A little bit. Working on two pairs of Manly Aran socks in a row burnt me out a little bit, so I haven’t been doing as much knitting as I usually would. What I have been doing though is acquiring yarn at an alarming rate. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Weren’t you just talking about graduating and don’t you not have a job or any money?” That would be correct; however, I already sort of had the yarn. Which is to say I had some sweaters.
As a poor/cheapskate college student, I like cheap things. You know what’s cheap? Thrift store sweaters. You know what thrift store sweaters are made of? YARN. I’ve had the sweaters for a while and have been on an unravelling binge. I haven’t weighed any of them yet, but suffice it to say there’s a lot of yarn here.
What exactly have I unraveled? So nice of you to ask!
There’s this Shetland wool sweater that I got at a Good Will outlet (1.20 a POUND, people). It had tags still on.
It frogged into a lovely laceweight, but Shetland is a very sticky wool, so I had to roll it into balls instead of onto the niddy noddy like I usually do.
There’s a 80/20 wool nylon mix, the perfect shade of white for dyeing:
Five skeins of fingering weight yarn that will probably become socks (though I’ll probably hold it two strands at a time for strength). The little skein is from the collar, which alone yielded 140 yards.
There’s a very shiny linen/cotton mix (60/40) from a large tank top:
About dk. Not sure how much for enough for a tank top and a sun hat, which is the goal. I’ll probably also dye this.
There’s this Talbot’s 100% silk pullover:
Silk, by the way, frogs like a DREAM. It’s super strong so it doesn’t break every couple of yards like the Shetland was wont to. Ton of lace weight yarn here. There’s another skein I can’t find, so pretend there’s three. I want to dye it and make a huge shawl out of some of it.
Finally, there’s the creme de la creme, three wonderful, beautiful, SOFT skeins of 100% cashmere:
Also lace weight but will probably be doubled or tripled for… something.
Sweaters, as you know, have a front, a back, and two sleeves (except for that tank top, which was a cardigan so it had a back and two fronts). But there’s only three skeins of silk and cashmere (well, the cashmere sweater had this weird tie front thing, but it gave four skeins and we’re pretending about the silk). With the second sleeve of the silk and part of a sleeve of the cashmere, I wound up one skein with the blend:
It’s going to be a bitch to wind since the yarns aren’t plied, just held together. But it makes for the loveliest combination of shiny and soft:
I’m probably going to dye most of these skeins before I work with them (maybe I’ll make some white socks). I’m still in frogging mojo, so I’m basically frogging down my entire thrift store sweater stash. I’m currently working on a wonderful Express sweater of lace weight merino/viscose/angora/cashmere. So soft. I’m thinking shawl.
None of these sweaters were over $5 and I’ve got easily over $100 worth of yarn here. The cashmere alone would probably be at least $50, and I paid $3.60 for the sweater. Truly, it makes my cheap thrifty heart sing.
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 