A set of 4 Clover DPNs in the size 11 I was looking for would set me back about 12$ before the discount. That’s a lot to spend on an experiment, I thought, especially since I don’t use DPNs for anything, having nice sets of Options nickel and acrylic Zephyr circular needles. they have a nice taper at both ends…. Wait a second.

And there I realized I have all the DPNs I need. Without a cable these neat knitpicks.com circular needles sets can double for DPNs for my i-cord needs. they are a bit short for real DPN projects, but again, I don’t need them for that. So use your Options! Whether nickel plated tips, the  Zephyr acrylics or the Harmony wood needles, make use of your resources!

Saved my coupon, saved my money. End of story.

You can easily knit past the threaded holes when they are playing left needle.

Fast sock knitting with crochet hooks.

Hook Knitting Detail Video

I did however realize that recycling a new sweater from some inexpensive shop such as Ross or Marshalls is a great option. I was there shopping for the holidays last month and was lured to the men’s sweater rack. One thing I was confident of was that I would not be disappointed by finding a great sweater that had been ruined by washing and felting/fulling. While there were not a lot of colors and fibers that I wanted I did find one that is perfect.

A lot of nice yarn for just $20. Maybe I'll make a scarf and socks.

It’s a gray sweater in what I believe is sport weight, 45% lambswool. 40% modal, 10% nylon and 5% cashmere. I hunted up an extra large one to get the most yarn. It weighs 495 grams. The yarn is a mix of light and dark gray called Iron Heather, so it has a tweedy look. It has all the right kinds of seams – not serged.

And of course, Max my cat has to become involved in every knitting project.

The only odd thing is that it has a design on the front in intarsia, but that shouldn’t be a problem to unravel around.

The intarsia desing reminds me of a turtle for some reason.

Outside the sweater you can see Max approving of the cashmere content. Inside the sweater you can see the intarsia work. It didn't say it was this hand knitted. Do they have machines that can do intarsia?

I will give you an update when I get around to taking this sweater apart and unraveling it.

A little blurry, a lot messy.

I’d wanted a cabinet of some sort to keep it all in but didn’t want to invest in another piece of furniture, and I didn’t want some junky piece from a thrift store. Looking for a gift for my mother for Christmas I found myself at Target, in the far back corner where the closet organizing stuff is, and ran across their Sterilite plastic storage chests. I bought one with three drawers and one with five (both were the same size, but the second had four small drawers and one large) for under $25 and went home to tackle the monster.

As you can see by the before and after pictures it made a big difference. I can actually eat at my dining table without having to move yarn and knitting first.

Yes! The Yarn has been conquered.

The wool is in the wool drawers, the blends and other sorts of yarn are all in their own drawers, and the various tools and needles all have their places. My great knitpicks.com ball winder is put away, my crochet needles are separate from the knitting needles. The many started projects are in appropriate drawers in stead of lying all over the place accusing me of what I’m guilty of (neglect, distraction and indecision), and I have my sanity back. Some of it.

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Well, I made a trip to our local Savers Thrift Department store to look for decent wool sweaters from which to recycle the yarn. I thought this would be a great, economical way to obtain several skeins worth of yarn for just about $6. In general, I do believe recycling yarn can be a worthwhile endeavor, but I don’t think it’s for me. The reality of the hunt is not worth the result, which today resulted in more awareness than wool.

First thing I did was examine the 20 feet of men’s sweaters. Feeling along the edges of them for something that might be wool, as well as looking for sweaters that are mostly a solid color I discovered a few things about the sweater search that I don’t care for.

1. I don’t want to spend an hour pawing through hundreds of used sweaters. My time is worth more. On top of that I partially reinjured my mostly healed sprained finger sliding sweaters around on over-burdened racks.
2. Many of the sweaters are not solids, so you can’t get long runs of yarn out of them.
3. Some of them are sewn from cut steeks and can’t be unraveled in continuous strands.
4. Precious few haven’t been partially felted. I don’t know if Savers is washing these or the previous owners are the monster yarn murderers. Even one short wash will make the strands look very second hand, and I don’t want a new garment to look pre-owned from the get go. Also, a bit of felting will make it harder to pull out the stitches.
5. Some have stains. Do I want to spend $X on dry cleaning it before I cannibalize it? Not unless it’s a great looking yarn. Great looking yarn is very rare in situation.
6. Few of them are colors I want to work with. Do I really need that much DK weight, red yarn in 60% lambswool, 20% acrylic and 20% angora rabbit? It was almost the only one I found that wasn’t partially felted and had any potential. Do I know anyone who wants a bunch of socks made from this? I certainly don’t.

In the end I went up to the check out with a smallish women’s sweater in a bulky roving-type yarn that was dark gray and black mix. It was 20 percent alpaca, 70 percent wool and 10 percent acrylic, with cotton embroidery and the right kind of seams. I thought I could maybe get some yarn for a decent hat and scarf out of it. I waited a rather long time in line, observing the checker struggle four times trying to get the card swiper to work for a customer ahead of me, as well as other complications with the people in line. Having had this time to reflect on the whole, slummy experience, I turned around, put the sweater back where I found it and left empty-handed but with an armful of awareness.

Recycling yarn is more akin to hand-me-down-ism than you realize. You don’t have much of a choice. You have to decide if you want to make anything from what you do find that is decent. Do you like the color and the yarn? Will anyone else. It was kind of depressing to think I might get stuck with some yarn I don’t love and am not inspired by, and then drag myself through a project I know I’m going to want to give away, knowing it’s not just a gift, it’s getting rid of the stuff. I don’t want to give that kind of vibe to others, and I don’t want to keep it, a souvenir of the dismal fate of so many sweaters and a disappointing search.

You may have much better luck and spirit about yarn recycling that I do. To me though, after what I saw today, it’s more akin to picking at a trash heap than finding treasure. I want to feel better about the process of finding the yarn and its condition. I also prefer not to feel like I’m knitting in a compromise due to poverty. I can afford yarn, and even if I make the effort buy it cheaper online, at least it’s not what to me would feel like reclaimed junk.

Be sure to see part 2 of this topic at this link

You can get some great things at thrift stores. My favorite chair and a marble topped occasional table came from there, and a couple of vests I have. And I did have one super sweater find a couple of years ago, before I ever considered knitting: a fair isle sweater in 100% alpaca, NEW, in colors I love, for just $7. It is one of my cherished possessions. Here it is:

The suggested retail for this brand of 100% alpaca sweater was $150 for a solid color, and this one is multicolor fair isle. Maybe $250?

1. I have my red scarf planned and barely started. It’s a complicated pattern I’ve mentioned before, but I’m not excited about doing a scarf as I keep getting distracted.

2. I’ve been positioning myself for my first pair of socks, and have determined that I will do them toe up, magic loop, and have picked a pattern – mostly. I still have to order the yarn. I’m going for sport weight for a bit of a faster knit, but I also want to try a pair in worsted as the yarn is also cheaper – and I have some to use up. For the pattern I’m going to use the Serpentine pattern from Socks from the Toe Up by Wendy Johnson, but I need to modify the pattern for a taller sock, so that is delaying me. Socks are complicated! So many choices.

3. Another project is the Notting Hill cabled vest I ordered the pattern for from Interweave. I also sent for 10 balls of Dougherty yarn for it from knitpicks.com’s that is a blend of middle greens in their wool Shamrock line. Great price. The yarn just came today so now I have one project with a clear path and target. Nothing to figure out. Whew.

Notting Hill Vest from Interweave

4. Then I thought up a project for use in knitting itself, inspired by my cousin Leigh. She knits with her yarn sitting in an appropriate piece of her Hull pottery collection. I have a Hull & Sons chair, but I don’t have any Hull pottery or anything else.

One of Leigh's Hull Knitting Pots

I’ve been using Tupperware equivalents. So I decided I would knit myself some bowls and full them (like felting). So far I think I will double knit them so they have tougher walls to hold their shape, but I am yet to decide on a design, size or shape. I’ll have something for two-at-a-time socks that will hold two balls and the socks, and others for various projects, yarn and wip contained together. But probably not for the whole vest.

I paid $5 for this beauty. It's actually pretty comfortable.

I’m going to use mostly Lion Brand Fisherman’s wool worsted weight because I keep getting coupons for Joann’s to get 40% off and don’t really need much else – and they are big skeins for $9 before discount. I’m going there today to get a couple. Maybe I’ll buy some cheap craft felt or foam sheets to plan my bowl structure.

5. I also had begun a roll-up knitting needle holder but I’m not thrilled with how it’s turning out. It was to be in a multi colored acrylic yarn – didn’t care about that as it’s just for utility. But now I do care and have decided to make a sort of quiver with felted/fulled wool, and I think I’ll do a set of felted/fulled tags to keep the pairs paired rather than everything mixed up.

And then there are all the other exciting things I’m discovering: 6. I want to do a few videos on some things to show how the techniques are done in Portuguese knitting style, and 7. I have a new idea for a method that is derived from entrelac that I need to test. 8. I would also like to try stranded knitting.

One thing at a time. What? One thing at a time. What? One thing at a time. What?

• Turning a corner (crazyauntpurl.com)
• Two Directions (seemingly) At The Same Time? (timesunion.com)
• Too stupid to know better…. (momblognetwork.com)

“A quick little tutorial on making “plarn” -- plastic yarn made from grocery bags. You can crochet or knit with it to make environmentally responsible upcycled trashion items. Woohoo! Visit http://www.aephemera.net to check out the blog that this video is to be featured in.”

I tried it with my Portuguese knitting pendant that I invented, but with two hooks, and it worked great. No slowdown, just as fast as if I were doing just the one strand Portuguese style, and I found it was as easy to do right side and wrong side. I had seen another video on fair isle for socks using two knitting pins, but I think it was also socks and was done wrong side only…? I was afraid the yarn would tangle or something because i was turning the work but it took care of itself and I had no problems.

Anyway, I was so excited I went and bought a web cam so I can do a video of it. I will do it this weekend and post it here via youtube, so make a note to come back!

Now I need a fair isle project. I think I’ll go for a vest of some sort.

I’m an Aries. We are starters. The beginning is all important to us. Sometimes it is more important than anything that comes after the beginning, which is why completing things is a challenge. Oddly enough, we are also into speed and can be impatient. Patience and focus are important lessons for me. I’ve tended to be impatient with myself for not completing what I’ve started. So knitting is an interesting situation for me. It’s challenging me to understand my process, to understand the process that is learning, as well as the process of knitting itself.

There is a book that has had a big impact on me, by the title The Practicing Mind, by Thomas M. Sterner. I recommend it to anyone who wants to accomplish more in their lives, to be more at peace, and to whoever wants to learn or develop him- or herself in some way. One thing it made me aware of is the fact that everything you take on to add to your life and to your being as a person, such as through learning, is a process of development, discovery and practicing. Knitting has been more of these things than I expected, and a pathway of discovery.

Like I said, I have little to show for the months I’ve been playing with yarn, except for a growing readiness to knit. In exploring the options I’ve discovered which of the style of knitting are best suited to my needs, I’ve learned about the different needles and methods of working on different kinds of articles, and I’ve done a bit of invention in the form of the Portuguese knitting pendant I developed. And even that has been a week plus of discovery.

With the knitting pendant I presented the idea on ravelry.com and here, and then proceeded to discover more factors that make it work better, including the amount of weight, the length of the cord and how tight you keep the angle of the yarn. I kind of regretted that so many (about 200 visitors to my blog since then) have missed the latest important discovery about making it work right (#4), but what can I do. Word will get around. It reminds me to see and allow the unfolding of things over time. This includes my knitting projects.

One of the first things I decided to knit was the red wool scarf you see in the banner graphic on this site (if I haven’t changed it already). This project has gone through about eight restarts. I’ve changed the pattern, changed the width, changed the width again, changed the starting border, changed the needle size, frogged due to a disastrous stitch drop – couldn’t be fixed in this complicated lace-and-cable pattern – change the border again, forgot where I was and had to start over, and a few other reasons. Poor thing, but I know once I get a few inches in I will keep going. Right now I just have three rows – and I’m not sure I like them! It’s all part of a learning process. Argh.

And the socks. I’m learning, learning, learning. How do I want to do them? I’ve pretty much decided on toe up, but the yarn I was going to use isn’t soft enough so I’m going to have to order something. And wait until I get the kilt hose book I ordered yesterday. And figure out what I want to do with all the options it offers me.

Some day I won’t be just a beginner. I’ll be a completer. In fact, as harbinger of that, the pendant I chose for my first knitting pendant is the rune Jera, which means completion. A good vibe to be present at the beginning.

Just don’t count on any knitted gifts for Christmas.

(By the way, tell your friends about #4)

The process is what happens between the beginning and completion.