Good old 80’s

July 7, 2019 stgeorgeknits9 Comments

I have lots of yarn but I keep knitting old, unravelled jumper yarns. What’s wrong with me? I don’t know. I just hate wasting stuff and having a jumper in the wardrobe that never gets worn seems like waste to me.

I knitted a jumper in the mid-80’s. I liked it and wore it quite a bit for some time. After that I’ve not worn it at all. It was quite big, like jumper were in the 80’s and these days it wouldn’t fit inside a jacket or coat, and that makes it unusable, as far as I’m concerned.

So, I unravelled the jumper and knitted a smaller, simple, no-nonsense top-down jumper. Now it fits inside a coat. I don’t know anything about this yarn. It’s some kind of man-made fiber, possible mostly, if not entirely. In the 80’s I liked the colour. I liked those little colourful blobs. I still do. The yarn is quite thick and it only took about a week to knit this.

Back in the 80’s I remember thinking that this jumper is really warm because it’s so thick. Of course, it’s not that warm at all; I know that now. I plan to use it as an in-between seasons jumpers.

This scarf shows how much smaller the new jumper is compared to the old one. This is the leftover yarn from the jumper. The scarf is all garter stitch and I knitted until all the yarn was used. The scarf is about 160 x 32 cm so it’s a reasonable size.

None of this is helping me reduce my yarn stash but at least I didn’t waste much time on these AND at least now in my wardrobe there is a jumper I can use, rather than a jumper that just takes up space. The scarf is a bonus. WIN-WIN, methinks.

Happy knitting!

Reclaimed

May 4, 2019 stgeorgeknits9 Comments

There’s been a jumper taking up space in the wardrobe for years and it never gets worn anymore. It was made by my mother in the mid 90’s and it was quite huge, typical of the times. It was an all over Norwegian pattern and was a real shame that it was never worn anymore. I couldn’t find anyone else to wear it either and I doubt it would have been easy to find a buyer for it. So, I unraveled it. It hurt a bit but my philosophy is to use the stuff one way or other. At least now the jumper gets worn again. It doesn’t look as awesome but it’ll get used.

I used a pattern called Twin River by Drops Design. It was a very nice pattern – I might use it again sometime. I don’t know what this yarn is. My guess is that it’s some kind of wool mix. I did completely random stripes.

I used the leftovers for a hat.

It’s a shame I didn’t take a picture of the original jumper but needless to say this one looks nothing like it.

The original jumper had steeked armholes. Obviously the yarn was cut into short bits. I calmly knotted all the bits randomly and knitted a cushion cover. Knots are hidden inside. Waste not, want not!

Happy knitting!

Toys · Upcycling

Thumbs up, boys

January 23, 2019 stgeorgeknits5 Comments

I love to repurpose stuff. I keep old clothing to make something out of them later. I cut t-shirts into t-shirt yarn and sew bags from old jeans. I make sock monsters from socks. My sister sometimes sends me a package full of old clothes and other stuff, and one time I found an old pair of kid’s gloves in there. Hmmm….I made a pair of bunnies.

The cuff was cut in half and sewn into legs. The two middle fingers (or rather the middle finger and the ring finger) were cut out and made into arms. The place where they were was sewn shut to make the top of the head. The thumb was cut out and shortened to be the tail. That was it. Then the bunny was stuffed and buttons were sewn for eyes and a cross for a nose/mouth.

Well, the bunnies were ok but a bit boring, to be honest. I left them for a while, until I suddenly thought that the bunnies need some winter gear. I knitted scarves and mittens for them and now they look a lot nicer.

Happy knitting!