I made a tiny bird! (Pattern here.)

I think this the first picture of my boobs on tumblr ever. Really, I just wanted to show off the very first knitting project I ever completed. I finished in April but I never got around to posting it. I figured I’d get a better picture eventually, but that never happened, so here it is!

What a cool idea!

This is the still wet yarn I got out of the sweater and then dyed. It looked great when I pulled it out of that dye bath but now that it’s drying, I can see some parts of it didn’t get enough color, especially where I tied the loops up so they wouldn’t come unraveled. Sucky. 

I think I’m going to dye it again tonight, but this time orange. Maybe I’ll get a fire effect. I wasn’t kidding when I said I got a lot of yarn out of that sweater!

I made an impromptu yarn swift yesterday to gather all the yarn from the sweater. See how ugly the color was?! The swift worked pretty well for as long as I needed it to (about a skeins worth because that chunk of yarn got all knotted when Eric tried to help me wrap it) but towards the end, the stress of the yarn pulling on the jars which were hot glued to the lazy susan pulled them all off. I put a paint stick in one of the jars so it was easier to spin. Eric plans on making me a swift by drilling holes into the lazy susan  big enough for dowels to be put in, which will be awesome because I’m not spending $40 on one. That’s just insane to me.

The dye bath I used when I dyed the yarn tonight.

I decided I wanted to learn how to spin my own yarn because I was too cheap/poor to keep buying nice yarn for my projects even though I’m kind of yarn snob. I have a ton of wool sitting in a bag next to my desk but I haven’t really touched it yet. I always put off trying new techniques because it freaks me out and I hate failing.

So anyway, in attempt to procrastinate a little longer, Evie and I took a trip to the thrift store yesterday and I bought a bunch of sweaters to unravel. That’s how I came across the cashmere sweater (which will be staying in sweater form). So last night and today was spent unraveling a men’s extra large sweater. I can’t remember the brand but it was a good one. The sweater was probably sold for at least $50 when it was new and I grabbed it for four bucks. 

I passed over a lot of sweaters because I didn’t like the colors and it wasn’t until a half hour ago that I realized I had RIT dye and a lot (a LOT) of brownish/tan yarn and that the two would go together swimmingly. (Most of the sweaters there were made out of cotton, which is cool with me because I love cotton but it’s way harder to dye than animal fibers.) So now, I’m sitting in my bathroom, stirring a five gallon bucket of yarn and dye. I don’t even know how much yarn I got out of this sweater but it’s a stupid amount. Hundreds and hundreds of yards. 

And it’s going to be red and beautiful. 

Back to the subject: spinning. I think I’m going to be done with spinning for a while after the batch of wool I have now is used up. (Unless spinning the wool gives me something super amazing.) Ripping apart $4 sweaters and ending up with at least $50 worth of yarn is totally more my style. I get to customize it and I’m upcycling something that would have either sat in a thrift store for years or ended up in a landfill somewhere. Plus, the money I spend at the thrift store goes to charity. I get to be cheap and green (and probably a little red because I didn’t have gloves to wear.)

I’ll post pictures of the yarn when it’s all done. It’s going to be awesome.

I have a lot of wool. Now I just have to learn how to turn it into yarn and I’ll be in business. 

Eric has decided that I will be making these for him. I’m definitely not complaining!

therexmannings:

AW!