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Post by hipmamajen on Mar 12, 2009 17:14:32 GMT
I know that people were concerned with the cost of high wool yarn, and I was reminded of this. I've done this in the past, and if you pick a second hand sweater that's in good shape you can get a lot of great yarn out of it for very little cost. One sweater I dismantled yielded 850 yards (about 775m) of quality usable yarn when I was done, and I only paid about $2(US) for it! I used the tutorial at this website, Neveau's Fiber Arts to learn how to pick the proper sweaters to start with, and how to take them apart. The yarn ends up being whatever color the sweater was, of course. If you pick white or cream color sweaters, you can easily dye them yourself using Koolaid, if that's interesting to you. I found some great instructions at Knitty.com, and I was even able to get my kids in on the action. It was a lot of fun and worked amazingly well! The only other thing I can add is that I've found it's better to take apart sweaters made of a thicker yarn. They are much easier to unravel, and and the yarn doesn't break nearly as often as you go! Also, you end up with chunkier, warmer yarn when you're done, but you can easily double up thinner yarns so that's not really a huge issue... I know that there are already instructions at the main site for felting sweaters to make squares. So, if you're out looking for sweaters to felt and you find some plain white ones in good shape, you might try this method, too
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Post by yarney on Mar 12, 2009 21:45:28 GMT
When you frog the yarn, how do you get the kinks out? Do you wash it as a hank and lay it out to dry ? I realize that if it is wool, and you put it in the dryer it will felt.........but that it might be okay to dry it in a mesh bag in the dryer if it is acrylic..... Just wondren', lol. Yarney
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Post by hipmamajen on Mar 12, 2009 22:21:14 GMT
I wash it gently in a hank and hang it up to dry in my shower. I just use a tiny bit of soap and squeeze it out and then rinse in warm water. That gets most of the kinks out, and the rest are invisible when you knit it up
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Post by Hugsml on Mar 13, 2009 0:46:29 GMT
What a great idea... I never thought about doing this... you should be able to pick up some wonderful yarn at the second-hand shop for next to nothing. Thanks for the tip!
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Post by crochetnut on Mar 13, 2009 3:28:34 GMT
Thank you for such a fantastic idea!!!!
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Post by hipmamajen on Mar 13, 2009 6:45:07 GMT
No problem, I hope it helps someone
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Post by Kerry on Mar 13, 2009 9:05:44 GMT
Hehe! I think I will pop in the charity shop tomorrow and see what I can find! If I manage to find a good candidate then I will try and post a progress report!
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sandy
New Member
Posts: 10
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Post by sandy on Mar 21, 2009 2:58:02 GMT
What a terrific post! As not everyone will access the forum or this topic, it would probably be good to put another page on the site to pass on these great ideas - yarn tips, or something like that, what do you think? Sandy
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Post by hipmamajen on Mar 22, 2009 23:35:41 GMT
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Post by Sandy on Mar 23, 2009 5:03:55 GMT
Hello, I just checked out your blog on un-ravelling old sweaters and then dying them with different colours. They are amazing - how clever. What fabulous squares they would make. Thought the brown wool looked fine (although I noticed the date - 2005) so figured that wool has probably way since been disposed of or made into something else. it would look good with pink stripes! Sandy
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Post by kokkole on Mar 23, 2009 11:28:22 GMT
HI! to get kinks out of unraveled yarn, my mom recently revealed to me that she has a plexiglass rectangle that she unravels sweaters on to. she then soaks the yarn on the plexiglass, and then lets it dry. then, she winds the yarn into balls! I think I'll give this a try myself, then koolaid dye it, as soon as I find a good cheap used sweater! Mary
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andrea
Junior Member
Posts: 53
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Post by andrea on Mar 23, 2009 15:02:50 GMT
Hipmamajen, how on earth did you dye the wool multicoloured? You did an awesome job!
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Post by hipmamajen on Mar 23, 2009 17:35:51 GMT
I used Koolaid and food colorings It was a lot of fun!
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Post by hipmamajen on Mar 23, 2009 17:36:18 GMT
HI! to get kinks out of unraveled yarn, my mom recently revealed to me that she has a plexiglass rectangle that she unravels sweaters on to. she then soaks the yarn on the plexiglass, and then lets it dry. then, she winds the yarn into balls! I think I'll give this a try myself, then koolaid dye it, as soon as I find a good cheap used sweater! Mary That's a neat idea!
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