The Thrifting Files

The socks are done!  They are currently blocking on the porch and will [hopefully] have lovely photos taken of them tomorrow.  I have this fantasy of laying on the grass with my stockingd feet propped up on a tree but I think the neighbors might ban together to have me kicked out for scaring their children.

In the meantime, I received a lovely package today.  It actually arrived yesterday but was delivered to the apartment office because I was not home and they were afraid to bend it to fit in the mail box.  It's Coastal Knits!  I know there are blog reviews and podcasts and everyone is all excited, so I won't do a proper review here until I knit one of the patterns (though I already knit the Rustling Leaves Beret that was part of the pre-order package and absolutely love it).  One of the lovely things about this book is the photography.  I am now dying to own each of the sweaters in the exact colors and go visit the locations.  I know, a little too over the top crazy, right?  But they're just so nice!  My sweater addiction is back and I want to make them!

The problem with wanting to make sweaters is that I can't afford the yarn.  Oh, I can sometimes and occasionally I find a good deal, but I don't have the stockpile of sweater yarn that a lot of knitters seem to.  In fact, despite my possession of a dedicated yarn cabinet, I don't own all that much yarn.  And I certainly do not have the quantity and range of yarns I would need for such nice sweaters.  But as I was feeling sorry for myself and wishing I had the money to go crazy buying sweater yarn at SAFF (could still happen.  I'll be a nice skeletal size if I blow all my money and can't eat.  Plus, I won't need as much yarn), I realized that I have a few ratty old thrift store sweaters that I keep on hand for at-home winter layers.  And they are machine knit in pieces.  Couldn't I frog the yarn and reuse it for my own knitting?  Then I'd be just as warm, maybe more stylish, and be able to knit sweaters!

So I started with this.

Over three hours later it looks like this.

Somehow I could not find a way to undo the seems and thus have to unravel the pieces from each other.  It's taken a good portion of a Jim Butcher audio book to get this far.  But I'm determined.  The idea of owning enough of a wool angora blend to knit a cardigan is enough to keep me going.  I'm just going to be working on it for a while.

One thing's for sure.  When I do finally get to knit with this yarn I will make sure I learn how to properly join yarn.  There is no way on this earth or any other dimension that I am going to weave in all of these ends.