Posts Tagged ‘wool’
What is Wrong with Cascade 220? I’ll Tell Ya.
January 29, 2011 | 
Author You hear a lot of people talking about using Cascade 220 superwash wool. It comes in a lot of colors, is relatively affordable. 
But that’s all there is to recommend it. It’s very blah yarn. The wonderful, natural wool characteristics have been ripped from these sad fibers and what you have is lifeless, convenient yarn.
I bought three balls of slightly deep red Cascade 220 when I first got into knitting a year or two ago. I was going to make myself a neat scarf. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Reviews | 
Tags: alpaca, cascade, cascade 220, cascade 220 review, cascade yarn, good wool yarn, superwash, superwash wool, what is good yarn, wool, yarn | 
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Knit a Crystal Cozy for Your Pocket or Purse
Have a Ruined (Felted/Fulled) Sweater? Salvage Idea!
I’ve written some about my frustrated experiences with trying to recycle yarn, but I ran across this idea for another way to give new life to old, ruined wool sweaters: full/felt the hell out of them and turn them into knitting baskets, basket liners or bags! If you have one or find one at the thrift store that you like but it doesn’t look like a good candidate for frogging to reuse the yarn, just reuse the whole thing. Throw it in a pillow case and put it through a hot, soapy wash and then cut and stitch to make your new item. I was going to knit a few such projects and full them myself but this is a great, time saving alternative, and it gives new life to a sweater someone will probably never buy or really want to wear if they do buy it. Less wool in the landfills?
Check out the inspiration for this idea.
To my readers and subscribers: I do enjoy your “patronage.” If you like my blog, please forward some links to my site to your knitting pals. Thanks!
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Posted in On The Web | Tags: felted sweater, recycling, reincarknitting, sweater, thrift stores, wool | 3 Comments »
Is This Wool? How to Test Before You Knit
Yes, I own some Wool-ease, which is mostly acrylic. I don’t really like it. I bought it when I was new to knitting. It will be okay for some projects, but I really prefer natural fiber, and my real preference is naturally dyed or naturally colored fiber.
So I have some yarn that I balled with my ball winder and now I’ve forgotten if it is all wool or not. I found on the web you can test a scrap by putting some of the yarn in a cup with some undiluted bleach overnight and if it is all wool there will be pretty much nothing solid left.
BUT – brain on – a much faster test is to take a two feet of it if its worsted, or an equivalent amount in other weights, and try to felt it by rubbing it into a ball in a bath of hot, soapy water. If it’s a feltable fiber like wool you will know within minutes, and without chemicals, fire hazards or nasty smells. The less wool in it the less it will felt. Do a test of something you know is wool for comparison if you are not sure it’s felting as well as it should.
There is a burn test if you don’t mind your home smelling line burnt hair or plastic. Visit this link to read about it. What, no takers?
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Posted in Techniques, Updated Since Posted | Tags: acrylic yarn, Fiber art, Knitting, Natural fiber, wool, Wool-ease, yarn | Comments Closed
Recycling Yarn Not the Treasure Hunt I’d Hoped (Part 1)
(Be sure to see part 2 of this topic at this link)
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 Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Projects, Techniques, The Knitting Experience, Updated Since Posted | Tags: alpaca, Charity shop, fair isle, felted sweater, Knitting, recycling, sweater, thrift stores, wool, yarn | No Comments »
