Sweater Harvesting

I am cheap. The "frugal" meaning of the word, mind you, but I prefer the negative connotations cheap has. "Frugal" gives a feeling of distinction to one's penny pinching ways. It portrays you as the sort of person who purchases the things they want in life, they just find good deals, or save up for them. Nope, I'm not that kind. I'm the kind that will go without purchasing clothes for a year, because the ones we own only "have a few holes", or "are just a bit faded". If my shoes are not LITERALLY falling off my feet, I don't feel I need them. A can of soup is a viable dinner in the middle of summer, when I won't turn the air conditioner on, if it's at the end of the month.

I believe that if you won't pay for things, you should find an alternate way. With many things, it is simply to give them up. For things like food, have a garden and harvest your own. That being said, I crave yarn. I can't own sheep so, when I just can't get myself to buy yarn, I go to the thrift store to find my harvest.

I found a lovely merino sweater the other day:

I ripped open the seams, and started pulling.

I'm quite happy with the result at the moment. It was knit double stranded in a lace weight. I've ripped both sleeves and a good portion of the front. However, I'm putting it on hold until the husband returns and he can wind one of the strands and I the other. I tried it my self, but the strands are twisted just enough that slowly pulling one side, then the other catches the fuzz into a ball and makes a lovely felted knot holding them together. I hate leaving the hard work for last and I'd rather unkink the yarn after I did the horrendous task of separating kinked lace weight.




And now to contradict myself. I am TOTALLY buying myself yarn if I won anything at the fair.