fishie’s aquarium

I’m officially broke after spending several hundred dollars on vet bills, so my future knittings are limited to yarns I already have. I’ve got a few sweaters I need to do before winter’s over, and buying yarn for sweaters can add up. So I improvised:

The green yarn is 80% alpaca, 20% nylon, from a sweater bought specifically to unravel. Some of you may recognize the brownish yarn, although not in this form. It’s from a sweater (bought from a thrift store!) I wore for a couple years, but have stopped recently because it’s just not flattering. Apparently it was made from a LOT of yarn. 100% acrylic chenille. I’m not sure if I want to just remake that sweater, or reincarnate it as some hats and scarves. We’ll see.

In other news, HURRY UP AND DRY ALREADY!

If there was ever any question in regards to my sanity, here is your answer.

I just recycled this yarn:

This used to be one of those stretchy tube scarves that everybody and their mom had five years ago. Kate was going through her scarf drawer and asked me if I wanted the ones she was throwing out. They were all fabric except for this one.

I accepted the challenge.

It took me several days to even figure out which end was the one to unravel, because it kept getting tangled on itself before I could make any progress. Once I did have the right side, it took me a few days to figure out why I was having such a hard time: IT WAS KNIT WITH FOUR DIFFERENT STRANDS OF YARN. No idea why. But it was, and it took me a while, but I DID IT.

Now to see if it tangles up on itself if I even look at it wrong.

Yesterday morning Chris finished putting together his new router table and was able to start helping me put together a niddy noddy for me to undo sweaters onto.

The Niddy Noddy in all its glory.
One wrap around the entire thing is approximately 5 ft. of yarn.

As soon as it was done, Chris handed it to me and said, “Go unravel a sweater!” So I did.

My first unraveled sweater was perfect. Big chunky yarn in an OBVIOUSLY bottom-up pattern. All I had to do was unravel the stitching holding it all together and off I went.

The sweater was in four pieces: two sleeves and an identical front and back.

One of the ex-sleeves

Reminds me of tentacles

A sweater’s worth of yarn. I’m estimating about 900 yards of 100% cotton wonderfulness

I have no intention of knitting anything with it soon. I’ll probably do the obligatory OUT YOU KINKY BITS! soak, twist it up, and then throw it in a bin until inspiration strikes. But OH man it feels great! All that yarn for $10?! That was my splurge of the thrifting trip. I felt bad paying that much for a used sweater, but I found the original “inspected by” sticker on the tag so it’s probably brand new anyway. And that’s a LOT of yarn for $10! It took me less than 30 minutes unraveling the whole thing, I believe.