Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Unraveling a Sweater & a new Pumpkin Soup



The idea of unraveling a wool sweater for yarn has intrigued me for some time.  I'm down to one dryer ball in my shop, and all out of wool yarn, so this seemed like a good time to experiment.  I chose a thrifted sweater that had a nice loose weave.  So far, I've learned it would be a lot easier to unravel a sweater that is one color, as with multiple colors, there are many, many pieces.  It figures; I just really didn't have a clue what to expect, and wondered if they were somehow tied together, but no, they are not.  With the wool being for dryer balls that will be felted, it's not an issue, so I'm just tying them together myself, as I go along.  If you were aiming to make a piece of clothing, you'd want yards of unbroken yarn. This is the tutorial I used, which gave me a basic idea of what to expect.  My sweater had sewn seams, which was tricky to discern at first, and tough to begin unraveling.  Her sweater yielded 428 yards of yarn.  If I wasn't interested in knowing what yardage I unraveled, I could just begin felting, as I've been rolling them up into balls as I go.  But I really want to know, so I can decide the value vs my time.  So, I'll be using her tip of measuring yardage using chairs, then rewinding them.  I may not do that on further sweaters.  I guess that depends on my curiosity, but for this first one, I do want to know.  It will be an approximation, with so many knots tied in it, and likely somewhat varied tension, but an approximation is OK.  At the start, I was keeping colors separate, but I like my dryer balls with varied yarns, so just started tying all the colors together.  I'll keep you posted.  *Thanks to a fellow yarn lover, I now know I can weigh my yarn to get approximate yardage.  Thanks for such a time-saving, wonderful tip, Kellie!



There's a new recipe to share. A pumpkin soup we enjoyed.  It was my first time making browned butter, and I'm sorry I waited so long.  I left the ginger out, as Joseph is allergic, but otherwise made the recipe as is.  For toppings, I used the browned butter and brown rice, which was excellent.  I'll likely try yogurt in the future, and possibly the coconut, just to see.  I found the recipe here, an amusing blog I enjoy.  Scroll to the bottom of the post for the recipe.  Yesterday was a raw, cold, dreary day.  I decided an apple pie was in order.  Forgive the dark photo, but the one with more realistic color didn't show the paisley design as well.  The pie crust used up the last bits of flour in the house, so I made tapioca flour in the coffee grinder to use in the filling.  It turned out better than average.  Today is sunny, and the first load of laundry is ready for the clothesline.  Have an enjoyable day, friends!


4 comments:

Kellie Jensen said...

Hey there! I ran across this link the other day, it might help you figure out your yardage without having to measure each ball.
http://www.freshstitches.com/length-of-yarn-by-weight-how-to-calculate/

Laurie said...

Thanks Kellie! I am definitely going to check out the link.

Laurie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
cookingwithgas said...

That is a pretty pie. Your post made me get out a sweater that I needed to either unravel or clean. I went for clean and am glad I did.