Jun 6, 2008

Wool Gathering

Every now and then, my inner tree hugger nudges me to be a bit more conscious of my consumption. We all want, need, and get things at various rates in life, but at some point, you do try to carve out some kind of balance. When I think about my yarn buying habit, I know that I have already come close to exceeding how much I can actually use up before my children start to need tuition, but I find the temptation to buy much harder to resist at times.

To counter these urges, I try to implement the three R's. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
Reduce my stash to a reasonable amount (so that I can have the joy of filling it back up again).
Reuse yarn and materials from sweaters that I can get at my local Goodwill.
Recycle said yarn into a sweater that once cost someone $60, but last Saturday cost me $2.79.

Have you seen this great tutorial on reclaiming yarn from previously knit sweaters? How about this one? Using the techniques that these thrifty knitters outlined, I turned this Gap Sweater...

Tweed Wool Sweater - Before
Sweater Deconstruction - Snip. Rip. Repeat!


...into these yarn cakes. And now who knows what they'll become!

Recycled Yarn - Wool
Woolly, tweedy, mounds of potential (color is truest here)


I highly recommend this folks. In fact, the prospect of getting those 1200 + yards so cheap and easy kept me from going to a 40% off sale at my LYS. Now that's just economically savvy! Right? Yeah, yeah I know. When I run it past the hubster, I'll try to make it sound a wee bit more convincing.

Save a sheep! Unravel a sweater!