Wednesday, January 18, 2012

F.O.: Recyled Cashmere Sweater Scarf























This scarf began as an argyle cashmere sweater, a gift from my mom that I loved, but was unfortunately stained and starting to pill. The flecks of brown and pink in the scarf come from the argyle pattern. Because it is cashmere, it is super soft and smooshy. But you could make a similar scarf using any sweater you have lying around that has started to lose its luster (due to pills, moths, or general wear).

To make this scarf:

1) Lay out your sweater flat.
2) Cut off the body underneath the armpits, and make yarn using the same technique as my t-shirt yarn.
3) Cut off the arms, and make yarn out of those in the same way, cutting horizontally across the arms much like the t-shirt tube.
4) For the remainder of the sweater, cut in a spiral, creating one long strip of fabric, starting at the outside edges and going around the neck.
5) Wind "swarn" into balls.

(I forgot to take pictures of this process, but I may create another one and provide pictures for these instructions).

One sweater should produce 4 balls of yarn, enough yarn for a skinny scarf.

Materials:

- "swarn" from one cashmere sweater
- size 19 needles
- darning needle

Cast on 8 stitches.
Knit in garter stitch (knit all rows) until you've used up most of your yarn (leaving enough to cast off). Slip the first stitch of each row to create a nice selvedge.

To join balls of yarn, just knot them--the fabric is bulky enough that the joins will not show.

Cast off.
Weave in ends.
Stretch the scarf gently to extend the length.

Wear everywhere.

1 comment:

hana said...

This is such a clever idea, I never thought of this although I've done t-shirt knits. from HP's mom