

A day in San Francisco
Another trip to San Francisco, this time I spent time on Market street I was pleasantly surprised to ran into the St Patrick parade that day. Always my favorite holiday!! Always on a quest to find new stores, I decided to explore Blick, art materials great store with all the art supply you can dream of. I got some dye, color pens, notebooks, stamps... I hit a brand new Brazilian grill place at the Westfield mall, it was just perfect lunch


Winter melt down
Now that my yarn is ready for knitting, let's find the perfect pattern. Pattern : Cloud Bay by Justyna Lorkowska Yarn : Merino/alpaca/nylon blend, (recycled yarn) Unravelled yarn from a Banana Republic sweater, 550g
Gauge US7, 18 sts -32 rows Notes for pattern modification : Use the pattern until pockets, Modification of the pockets Front of the pocket Row 1, K9, put 23 sts on spare yarn cast on 23sts (back loop), K until last 32 sts, put next 23 sts on spare yarn, cast on 2


Making recycled yarn new again
Once we get yarn from our sweater, the challenge is to entangle it I used a steam technique to make the yarn new again I put each skein in the vegetable basket of my giant pot Put some water to steam inside the pot Steam reach the yarn in the basket Left the yarn there 3 times 20 minutes, letting the steam reaching all area of the yarn Put yarn to dry around the umbrella to straight it out Then put back in skein Yarn is magically untangled and like new again Time to start a n


Dyeing recycled yarn
Got a few samples of the yarn for the 2 sewater, enough to play around with dye Now I am experimenting with dye not knowing how the yarn will appear after dyeing With the light grey yarn With the off white yarn Well it is interesting colors are not the same as indicated on the label On the right the original color from label On the left the color with the grey yarn On the right the original color from label On the left the color with the off white yarn Well now let's untangle


2 sweaters into plenty of yarn to unravel and knit again
Went shopping and brough back 2 very large sweaters, none of them I would even wear. WHAT!!!! Yes, I don't buy any sweater any more, only if I can reuse the yarn later. I like to buy sweaters from expensive stores at 80% off and unravel the yarn. LOOK FOR - good quality sweaters - dk weight yarn are my favorite - no surger finish, like in this picture otherwise it will be a torture to unravel - merino blend, 100% is the best but it is hard to find so the highest % is the best