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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.
Okay, so technically it’s late on Tuesday morning. Shhh.
Anyway, what I picked up at the Holiday Fair I went to on Saturday. Some yarn and some fabric and also a skirt (which I don’t have pictures of). Unplanned Peacock was there, and I splurged (really, since it was more expensive than I’ve ever spent on one skein of yarn) on some sock yarn in the delightfully phoenix-y color solar:
I also picked up a lovely skein of sport weight alpaca for five bucks (I KNOW):
And two silk bells weighing about 38g total, even though I’ve never spun silk before:
And finally, at one of the tables selling fabric, there were two bins of free scraps of fabric. Some of them were really large pieces (like a yard), and I scored a couple:
The brocade will probably be a corset (with several muslins). Not sure about the other ones though.
Okay, so maybe I lied. Turns out I figured how to gain internet access, and that means you all get an early post! Whoo! Anyway, as I said, knitting has been happening:
(Sorry for ridiculous edited photos. The second one (the next one after this) has the most accurate color.)
Pattern: It’s a triangle with eyelets. Do you really need a pattern?
Yarn: Combo yarn I got in a swap. I believe it’s silk and cotton.
Needles: US 10/6 mm Knit Picks Options circular
(This is the most accurate shot of color.)
This came out exactly how I wanted it too: large and warm. It’s a lovely scarf. It’s cotton, so it’s not the best fiber for winter, but until I get around to knitting a wool triangle scarf, this will do. Plus I love the yarn. The light green strand, the silk, is shiny and soft and the cottons are nice too. The tweed bits are interesting (though I think I’d have preferred to leave them out).
So what else is going on? Well, Ongoing Wish Swap is happening. I’m expecting two packages hopefully in the next two weeks, otherwise I’ll have to wait until I get back to school after winter break. I’ve also finished a hat, which I’ll hopefully post on Monday. I’m also working on a pair of vanilla socks, as I mentioned yesterday, I think, and those will probably show up on Wednesday. After the socks, there might be another break in posting as it’s the last two weeks of the semester starting Monday (a week of classes and then a week of finals), and I have a ton of schoolwork to finish in that time. But I’ll give you a better update then. Stay tuned!
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 