Rug is done.

I am not sure if I have mentioned this before and I don’t feel like scrolling through to check but I have been working on a rug for a few months. My friend Lin is an incredible weaver with an amazing studio that is also known as the sweatshop.

She cranks out project after project and encourages Molly and I to do the same. She has taught both of us to weave and supervised me on easier projects such as a scarf.

Because I am so messy and reckless I had a number of sweaters that had been ruined. Beautiful, soft, mostly pink, mostly cashmere sweaters. Mostly they met their end through stains or being carelessly thrown into the dryer. I wasn’t ready to part with them. I tried to felt them into immortality so I washed them all in hot water at least once. For some it worked and for others not so much. Then (or maybe before) I decided that I could use them to make a rug. It was not my idea; I read about it here http://www.re-nest.com/re-nest/rugs-carpets/recycled-sweater-rugs-035279. Would I spend $125 for a rug made out of someone else’s old sweaters? Maybe, but not when I had several of my own laying around and access to a loom. It was going to work perfectly because all of my sweaters were in a coordinating color family because that is how it works. You like a certain group of colors and you go with that. I had a few pinks, one green, and one dark blue/green color.

We then cut the sweaters into strips. Molly cut them into really really really long strips. Yards and yards and yards long. I suppose by starting at the bottom of the sweater and cutting in a spiral until there is nothing left. While we were cutting strips we got the warp ready – light and dark green stripes. We got it all on the loom, blah blah blah. That part took months because it was tedious and the loom was at Lin’s and there were the holidays… you know how it is. 

Now it is done! I am so happy. It came out so much better than I could have dreamed. I wish you could feel how crazy soft it is because it is unbelievable! Also, there are sweater bits throughout the rug like tags and a button.

I love every weird element and I am so happy that my old sweaters are a new rug that will last a lifetime, maybe more! It is 3.5X5 ft so bigger that the rug at the link above and free!

Julie's Scarf Problem

This is a blog post in response to my friend Julie’s blog post about knitting projects that curl. Lets get right to it. Here are the pictures; do you see what is happening here friends?

Here is the thing, and I don’t like telling you this Julie: stockinette stitch curls, it does not lay flat. By the way, stockinette stitch is knit a row, purl a row.

Don’t believe the hype about blocking. I love blocking to get my projects looking even and professional looking, but not to combat major curling – which is what you are faced with. So you totes should block but not to uncurl, just to make all your stitches look perfect. How you block depends on what your yarn is made of. 

You haven’t gone too far. I suggest if you can’t live with the curling (which will be much worse when you take the needle out. The needle is trying to keep the whole thing straight, when it is gone you will have a tube, which could be cute) you take it out and start over.  Curling can be curbed with a boarder. Lets say your project is 20 stitches wide, here is what you do:

Um… I don’t usually fix knitting projects over the internets and I am realizing that I rely heavily on sketching. Ok, lets say that the X’s are knits and the O’s are purls.

Right now you are doing this

Row 1: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Row 2: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Row 3: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Row 4: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

And so on….

I suggest a scarf of stockinette with a garter (all knit) border so the first few rows and the last few rows are all knit. Then, for the main part of the scarf you can do garter stitch on the edges.

So do 6 or 8 rows all knit (k a row, k a row, k a row….)

Then switch to this pattern

R 9 :XXXXXOOOOOOOOOOXXXXX

R10:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

R11:XXXXXOOOOOOOOOOXXXXX

R12:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

R13:XXXXXOOOOOOOOOOXXXXX

R14:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

R15:XXXXXOOOOOOOOOOXXXXX

R16:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Or, leave it as is and love it!

What do you think? Other suggestions from my knitty friends?