Reusing yarn (green #10)

Ok, so I made a sweater once. It was an early sweater in my knitting life, and I just kind of made it up as I went along. The yarn was gorgeous gipsy hand-dyed wool from Fingerlakes Yarn. I wanted a shawl collar, so I made a shawl collar. I wanted a cardigan, so I made a cardigan. I wanted the edges of the sleeves and the hem to roll up the way that stockinette stitching does, and it did. That part was fun. My sweater design skills, tho, were beginning, so the pieces didn’t flow together. Cardigan + shawl collar takes more careful construction, and may not even make sense. I never got the buttons to work, so eventually I pulled off the placket and thought I might close it with a pin. To boot, I planned it during the period where I thought I might appear shorter if I drowned in my clothing. So, it could easily have fit me and a friend inside the trunk of the sweater.

The sweater was too expensive in terms of time and materials to let go of, yet too weird and too large to wear, so I finally decided to reuse the yarn in another project.

Well, I ripped it apart the other night, deconstructed it from sweater to several balls of yarn, and now I’m knitting it into a rug diagonally, using a basic garter stitch scarf pattern. Couldn’t be easier. Next I’m going to felt it. It’ll be something warm for near the bed in the winter or maybe near a door.

Now I wish I’d taken a photo of the sweater, or the de-sweaterification of the yarn. But, here’s a photo of the rug in progress.

I’m trying to decide if I want it to be a big rectangle, or if it will be a series of squares seamed together. Now I’m going to look for other never-used knitted items I can pull to bits. If I keep this up, I’ll no longer have to purchase yarn (though I expect I will). Instead I could just pull apart and redo projects endlessly.