Upcycled

 

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Well this is what I did with one of my favourite sweaters that had worn out (big holes in a few places that would not look great mended). I pretty much chopped off the entire ‘body’ section and turned it upside down, making a knitted tube…

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Then I folded what had been the bottom ribbing of my sweater over, stitched it down to make a channel and threaded waist elastic into it. That was the waist of the skirt finished.

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Then I got my all-time favourite cashmere blend knitted yoga pants, which I had literally worn to shreds, and cut a couple of nice big strips from each leg. I folded the strips double, and machine stitched the ‘fold’ edge onto my sweater skirt, covering the ‘raw’ edge of the brown sweater fabric, that I had made when I hacked the neck and arm section of the garment off.

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Job done! And two of my favourite garments live on in a new incarnation for a little longer.
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50 shades of lace

I had a very pale, dove grey in mind for a particular lace project…but even though they have an incredible selection at my LYS I resisted temptation and came home with some undyed (white) Fyberspates scrumptious lace yarn.


Mordanted with alum and cream of tartar and given really a very brief (15 minute) dip in a cool iron and logwood solution and I got this lovely pale silvery lilac.

I remember getting a similar colour during one of my earliest dye experiments (red cabbage juice, no surprise really!) and feeling disappointed that the colour was not deeper, brighter, more saturated. A couple of years on and with far nicer yarn and a better idea of what works, I’m deliberately aiming for a very subtle, neutral grey…

(No I haven’t read the book, but it does have a good title.)

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Steampunk

Why do some pieces of clothing have a certain vibe? Is it the texture, the colour, the cut…? It’s hard to put my finger on it. For some reason, my shawl for April (Of the Moon by Caitlin Ffrench) can’t help being steampunk.


The first shawl I’ve made from yarn I dyed and spun myself. Pretty pleased with it – the stitches are pretty even, the colour is interesting and shimmery, and it’s very soft and drapey.

And now back to finishing those socks…

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Halfway there…


One sock…


One gauntlet


One Smitten

I seem to have a case of second sock syndrome when it comes to starting pairs of things and only making the first one…although I have actually done about a third of the second sock…


My first adventure in knitting with a Crazy Zauberball, which means the finished socks won’t be a matching pair (deliberately unmatching) anyway.


Oh well!

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