gjenvinning

What is this, you ask? Some new knitting? Well, actually, no. This is a close up of the first thrift sweater I have bought for the purpose of yarn harvesting. It turns out to be a hand knit cotton sweater in a soft sage green. It's definitely 100% cotton, based on the result of my burn test.

I trekked all the way out to the Fretex on the east side of Oslo to look for sweaters I could use. There was a relatively decent selection--at least much better than any place else I've found in Oslo, but nothing compared to what's available in the U.S. I paid 149 NOK, which is about 17 dollars. Not exactly thrift store pricing! I'm definitely building in some thrift store time in April when I'm in Seattle.

I settled on this one even though it is cotton because I loved the color of the yarn and figured it would be easier to deconstruct a handknit than a machine knit. I liked the pattern so much I briefly toyed with the idea of not unraveling it--that is until I tried it on:

Lovely as the guernsey pattern is, you really can't get much dumpier than this! The sleeves add so much bulk and the waist is all wrong. What I'm hoping to turn it into is this, the Summer 2009 Knitty pattern called "Miss Honeychurch."

I had thought there would be more than enough yarn, but much to my dismay I discovered that it had been constructed the Norwegian way, which is to say the entire body is knitted as a tube and then the sleeve openings are machine sewn into each side of the tube and then cut. Big time bummer!! That means all the yarn from the armholes up to the shoulders is lost, since it's only the length of the width of the front (or back), if that makes sense. Since "Miss Honeychurch" is a top-down raglan, however, I should be able to max out the yarn. After the yoke I'll knit the sleeves and then once they're done I'll just knit the body until I run out.

I'm still more or less on track with knitting the fair isle yoke sweater. Both arms are done and I have about 15 (out of 45) cm on the body. I'm setting it aside for a while though to knit up a pair of long johns for E. It is incredibly cold here now.