Unraveling the Sweater

I love to shop at thrift stores. 

I love to find unique and one of a kind things. 

I love the idea of saving something from the landfill and re purposing it. 

 I am so down to up-cycle: taking something 'old' and making it 'new' again. 

Unraveling thrift store sweaters for yarn is an obvious no brainier for me, but I can't take credit for the idea. I am actually sure that people have been doing this for as long as there has been yarn to unravel from sweaters! For me the idea came when surfing the web one lazy afternoon last year around February. I stumbled, so to speak, across Ashley Martineau's blog. Then Neauveau Fiber Arts and now How to Spin Yarn. It was her How to Unravel a Sweater to Recycle Yarn article that got me started on unraveling sweaters, something I still do. 

I have even used unraveled yarn to corespin with!

 I created over 150 yards of core-spun yarn by spinning around my recycled sweater yarn with semi felted Alpaca (Semi Felted- a happy accident that took place during my first forays into washing my own fleece) and then wrapping it during plying with a wool single from Custom Woolen Mills in Alberta. I still had enough yarn left over for My latest use in:

 Day 19 Square for My Granny Could Knit That personal challenge 

I still have lots of this yarn left... my guess... over 150 yards still to be used!