Making Yarn Out of….. Yarn!

So you went to a garage sale/estate sale/resale shop.. and found HUGE cones of lace weight mohair that you must have. Great price – that goes without saying. You must have this, no way around it.

The next day (or next week, or next year) you’re questioning your sanity at this purchase knowing full well you have no intention of knitting 2 miles of lace weight anything.

What to do with this? Lucy Neatby has a wonderful idea based on the Navaho Plying technique spinners use which basically triples the weight of the yarn turning it into something much more usable. Read about this wonderful idea over at her website: http://www.lucyneatby.com/navaho.html

It took me a couple of read-throughs to “get” this but it would totally work, now all of those spools of lace weight that I bought, I mean that you bought are useable again! Check out her article.

Next Pattern:

If you’re looking for a sweater knitting pattern that uses up some of your stash and allows you to make just the sweater you want, the Marlina Rib by Shay Johson might be just the thing.

It’s worked with two strands of fingering weight yarn held together to make a DK weight gauge, so you can use the same two yarns throughout or change one or both regularly for an even more colorful look.

The pattern has options to make it either a crewneck or a henley style with buttons, tapered or relaxed sleeves, and a straight hemline or a split hem with buttons (which sounds so cute if you do the henley with split hem and match the buttons on both parts).

It’s also knit from the top down so you can make the body and the sleeves as long as you want. There are 10 sizes available in the pattern, with a chest circumference ranging from 32 to 68 inches, or 81.5 to 172.5 cm. It’s meant to be worn with 4-6 inches/10-15 cm of positive ease at the chest.

The pattern page on Ravelry includes tons of measurements and yardage estimates so you can make sure you’ll get a good fit for your body before you even buy the pattern. Shay also shows a few variations of the sweater so you can see how different options look before you decide how you want to put them together.

The stitch pattern is 1×2 ribbing, which is really easy to do and gives a look almost like fisherman’s rib that’s relaxed and easy to wear.

This sweater looks like a great option for people who are somewhat new to sweater knitting or those who love to have lots of customization options (because it’s like getting multiple sweater patterns in one!).

Check out all the details and grab a copy of the pattern for yourself at Ravelry.

[Photo: Shay Johnson]

Next Pattern:

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