Recycling Yarn – Knitting

Purchasing quality yarns for your project can become costly. Many knitters have become resourceful in obtaining yarn for their projects by purchasing knitted items from thrift stores, yard or tag sales, or estate sales and reusing the yarn.

How do you decide if a knitted item is worth taking apart for the yarn? The [tag]KnitWit[/tag] site has a whole page devoted to the methodology of finding and reusing previously knit yarn. The most important thing she does is to avoid serged seams. When a seam is serged, the excess fabric is usually blade cut as it is sewn, thus each row of yarn is cut at both sides of the item and the yarn is in very short strands.

[tag]Ashley Martineau[/tag] published a tutorial and shawl pattern in the Spring 2005 [tag]Interweave Knits Magazine[/tag] about reusing yarn. The information is also available at [tag]Neauveau Fiber Arts[/tag].

Another source of how-to information can be found at this page at [tag]ebay[/tag]. This ebay guide writes very good information about purchasing recycled yarns at ebay and what information you need to for in the auction write up.

Bottom line is if you want to try expensive yarns, and have a beer budget, think about recycling yarn. At minimum, the largest expense will be your time.

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When I first started knitting again after a long absence from the craft (which has now been almost 25 years ago!) I really didn’t like garter stitch that much. I found it super boring, somehow even more boring than knitting stockinette stitch in the round, even though it’s exactly the same thing.

Over the years I’ve softened my opinion, and even grown to like garter stitch. There’s nothing wrong with being plain, and actually the texture of garter stitch is more interesting than stockinette.

Also there are fun things you can do with garter stitch to make it more interesting if you want to, such as adding stripes, working on the bias, or doing fun effects to change the look.

That’s the way with the Bernat Twist My Way Garter Knit Blanket. Using combinations of casting on and binding off creates what they call a Swiss cheese effect along two sides of the blanket. This is a lot of fun in the self-striping ombre yarn they chose for the pattern, but it would also be fun in a solid color or making your own stripes.

Despite the dramatic effect, this pattern is rated easy. It’s worked from side to side (if you consider the “cheesy” edges the top and bottom) and has an eight-row repeat that involves binding off and then casting on again to make the holes. They’re kind of like giant buttonholes.

Once you get the hang of it it’s a pretty easy repeat to remember, and it will be smooth knitting as big as you want to make it.

You can download this pattern from the Yarnspirations website for free, or you can buy a kit direct from them that includes the yarn you need (and knitting needles if you need those, too). Bernat Sport Ombre Twist, which is what is used in the pattern, comes in 12 self patterning colors and is a DK weight acrylic yarn.

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

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