New idea: since I am eager to sell my knits at
The Hodge Podgery, where they encourage recycled and re-purposed items, I decided to shop at a second-hand store for some sweaters to Ravel in order to reuse the yarn.
Shopped at the Community Aid store on Carlisle Pike in Camp Hill.
Bought a 100% Lambswool Anderson-Little sweater with 10 stitches per inch. It's a light tan, saddle-shoulder, raglan sleeve sweater. The seams are chain-sewn, so very easy to undo (Rrrip-it!). The sweater is new enough not to be too felted except in the armpits, so it's raveling quite nicely. There are the occasional breaks, so I just tie a knot and continue to wind the ball. A small amount in the armpits is unsalvageable because of felting.
The V-Neck was steeked, so rather than tie a knot for every row, I just cut down to the the bottom of the V and didn't try to salvage the yarn above that.
It's just the right color for the Capitol Dome hat I designed last year if the yarn isn't too fine.
Cool thought - The care label from the sweater could be sewn into a hat knit with the same yarn. But I probably ought not put the Anderson-Little label into my hat; that might offend their brand.
Since moving to Maine, I've been designing and knitting hats again. My favorite yarn is fingering weight wool, especially 2/8 Maine Line from JaggerSpun, or Palette from KnitPicks. The prototypes for a pine cone and tassel hat and a chickadee hat are completed. Also, a Breast Cancer Awareness hat is finished for a friend who asked for one after looking at my Facebook album. Now I've begun working on another one of my Spider hats in black, red and gray. On Wednesday we'll be taking a trip to PA for a few weeks, and I find I want to take along my whole stash of fingering weight wool to knit from. What painter would travel with only half of her colors?! Or at the very least, I must go find my colored pencils...
