I did, however, do some spectacularly bad dart-throwing, checked out the DeCapo 2005 Best Music Writing anthology, and went to my new favorite thrift store. I got all kinds of great stuff that I might even take pictures of to show off here.
***
This is what I spent the biggest part of the last couple days messing about with:
A Cheap Source of Yarn!
I like things that don't cost much, and I like to take things apart. I was that 9yrold girl who knew what the inside of her taperecorder looked like, and kind of the mechanics of how it worked. And if it didn't work quite so well after I found out, well...I had still learned something, right?
So thrifting a sweater to unravel for yarn to make other things with seems like a tailor-made-for-Jessy activity, no?
Unraveling a sweater is also, really, the next step for someone recently obsessed with knitting. Once you learn how, you can't stop noticing how things are put together. This is why I kept staring at Theresa's scarf the other night at Lanhucks and why 70% of my Narnia movie conversation with Tiff concerned the Pevensies' sweaters. Once I start noticing how things are put together, it's only a matter of time until I want to take them apart.
I used a fabulous and fun-to-read (even if you don't want to take apart a sweater) tutorial by a woman named Ashley Martineau who spins and does all kinds of cool stuff.
Here are some pictures!
The sweater. It's a light blue color, in a 70% lambswool 20% angora 10% nylon blend. I bought a Large; it was $4.
Man, it was pretty outside Sunday. I did some unraveling on my porch/balcony thing. I accidentally dropped my yarn ball and about had a heart attack as it rolled perilously close to the edge.
Also, you'll notice that the yarn is everywhere 'cause it was windy Sunday, too.
The cats investigate my 4 balls of yarn (1 from each sleeve, 1 from the back, and 1 from the front).
I wound it into crappy-looking skeins (Ashley comes through again) so I could measure the yardage. Almost 600 yards of yarn for $4! DAMN.
(just tilt your head to the side, okay?)
I used the pegs on the back of my full length mirror to measure. I put them a little over a yard apart (because I figured it was better to under-measure and have extra then over-measure and be screwed when I run out of yarn mid-project) and wrapped until I counted to 100. Peter Sagal kept me company, since that fake British lady on my local NPR affiliate apparently hates Ira Glass.
Next, I'm going to try dyeing the yarn with KoolAid. Since it's a blend of sheep, bunny, and plastic, I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen, but I bet it'll be exciting. I'm planning on trying with Pink Lemonade and/or Lime, so I'm sure I'll wind up with something cool. How hard can it be?
3 comments:
But you do have a cute dart throwing technique, for whatever that's worth.
when i was at pitt i had an art teacher whose thesis project involved unraveling thrifted afghans a la, um, odyseuss' wife. penelope! that's it. the final project was the pile of yarn on a table, but she said that finding hand-made things and thrift stores and pulling them apart made her curious about the people who made them and who gave them away. she was a little nuts but she wore cute skirts.
AAAh! I know the Bunny Love Lady! I used to work with her. she's nuts (but in a good way!)
Great job on a $4 sweater! I need to do that now...badly.
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