Buying old sweeaters to use the yarn?

[Chiscrochetcrazy]

I was watching a knitting show recently and they were buying sweaters from thrift store, and they partially rip out the work to add new details or pulling the whole thing out to use the yarn. Interesting idea , I might hit my local thrift store and see what they have.

 

[MarvieN]

I do this =) I haven't found an affordable yarn source over here yet, so I was in yarn withdrawl lol. Then I had the bright idea of attempting to take apart one of my chenille sweaters to see if it would be useable for crocheting. It was, I'm hooked. I have so far taken apart 4 sweaters, all chenille so far. One thing to watch for when you go shopping, check the seams... sometimes they serge the shoulders and/or arm joinings. I had two like that. I still got two fat balls of whole yarn, but when I got the serged areas apart, I also ended up with a lot of fringe lol. I saved it though because I planned to make scarves out of some of the yarn and I actually used some of it last night as fringe on a scarf. Now that I know, I look for sweaters that aren't serged, but if I love the yarn I buy the sweater anyway lol. I'll find a use for the bits n pieces.

so far I have spent no more than $3 per sweater, and I have gotten three plastic grocery sacks full of balls and hanks (when I got tired of winding lol) My next investment is a ball winder!

I currently have 5 sweaters waiting to be recycled. One is wool, which I plan to make a felted bag or hot out of, another chenille, and several acrylic. One is Ramie and is really soft, unlike regular old acrylic ) I can't wait to play with that one lol.

 

Marvie

[MarvieN]

The pics aren't great, kind of dark, but if you check out my blog marviescrochetcorner.blogspot.com/ I just did a sweater today and posted some pics before and after. I'm about to ball the rest of it, and I'll post a pic later of the entire haul

 

Marvie

[emeraldmoon]

I had done this with a sweater that was my husbands.. I loved the colors in it, he only wore the sweater once the whole 9 yrs we have been married.. I almost had sent it to the goodwheel, when I got the idea of taking it apart.. The seams area was a bad area to work with, so alot of that was put in a scrap bag, but I got a 4 balls of yarn from it.. I might start looking for more sweaters to do this..

[Chiscrochetcrazy]

Boy I can't spell:blush