Thursday, February 21, 2013

Recycled Divine Hat Project

Hello again everyone! The recycling of my knit sweater is complete and I just wanted to share something made from the recycled yarn.

This hat was a special request from an Ottawa mom who sent me this photo asking if I could make something like this for her daughter.

For those of you who know me, I rarely (if ever) use patterns while knitting so this request was a challenge for me because I couldn`t just make this one up. I found a photo of something very similar to this hat on Ravelry. This crochet pattern was created by Sarah Arnold and is called "Divine Hat" but the amazing thing was it looked almost identical to the knit my Ottawa friend was looking for!

Baby steps! Baby steps!

So I downloaded the pattern... Googled... watched a few YouTube videos to catch up on the stitches that were required and then was determined to make it all work.


I have to compliment Sarah Arnold because this pattern worked out so perfectly! I love the pattern and the recycled yarn and how it looks in this hat. My anxiety was definitely all for naught! This pattern was easy to understand, easy to follow and had great results! I would recommend you all try it out. In the meantime here is my Divine pattern crochet hat made in our recycled yarn!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/124361076/womens-divine-hat-with-spirals-beanie

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Unravel a Sweater to Recycle Yarn - Part 2

Hello again everyone! All of the yarn went into a bath during our last post and now that everything is dry and wound up into balls its time to share the rest of the process with you.

When you have separated your sweater and are getting ready to unwind the knit fabric you should decide if you want to store the yarn in the form of a hank of yarn or a ball of yarn. Typically those who recycle fibre to sell will want to form a hank of yarn, then will twist it and make it pretty for sale. If this is the case for you I would suggest making or purchasing a niddy-noddy. This will help you to measure the length of yarn and to help keep the yarn tidy while washing. For my purposes I intend to ball the yarn to knit and crochet with so I formed a rough skein by winding the yarn between by thumb and elbow. I tied small pieces of scrap yarn in four places around the unwound yarn segments. This will help to keep the yarn from tangling in the wash.
You can skip this washing stage if you are happy with the yarn but I would like to wash mine because of the existing smell of detergent and fabric softener from the thrift store. The wash will also help to straighten the kinks and loops in the yarn from being in the form of a sweater for so long.

Find a plastic tote or bucket that you can use for this washing stage. Fill the container with enough warm water to saturate the amount of yarn you have recovered. You do not want to use hot water because animal fibres will felt under the heat and agitation of the washing process.

I have read a number of "How To" blogs and resources on the washing process itself and what to use as a detergent in this process seems to vary by personal taste. There are wool washing products on the market but often shampoo and liquid dish detergent are recommended. For my first attempt I used shampoo because the brand I use is dye and fragrance free to avoid any potential allergies up the road. For the amount of yarn I had I added one tablespoon of detergent to the water bath.

Once you have mixed in the detergent add the skeins of yarn one at a time. Allow them to become saturated in the water and sink below the surface. Do not agitate the yarn during this process though since it can cause felting and damage your yarn.

Once you have the yarn in a bath to soak you get to take a break! Let it soak for an hour (this is why I prefer to use a container instead of a sink). If you have stained yarn or yarn with a musty smell you could even leave it to soak overnight.

Here is my kitty Oliver helping with the yarn!

One hour later...
Drain all of the water from your container and rinse the yarn skeins with clean warm water to remove the detergent that remains after the wash. Remember not to agitate the yarn during the rinse.

From here use your hands to gently squeeze excess water from the yarn. The next stage is to hang it all up to dry. This part actually had me rolling on the floor laughing! I hope you have as much fun with this as I did! A good laugh is medicine for the soul I swear!

It is currently about -15°C outside so hanging it up to dry outside is out of the question. So here I was rummaging around the house looking for things to help rig up a drying rack for this yarn. Too funny!! 

So here is my make-shift drying rack and my bathroom... bungee cords, a metre stick and plastic wrap... too funny right? Moving on though it worked well! 
I have read also that adding weight to the bottom of the loop of yarn as it dries will help with the straightening process. I just filled some bottles with water and rested them in the loops of yarn to weigh them down.

Now close your bathroom door, forget about your yarn, and go to bed and let your yarn dry overnight. I am laughing as I write this looking at the photo above with the bottles hanging there on the yarn... through the night my yarn shifted ( I assume the furnace kicked on and the vent above started to rock my drying rack contraption) and all of the water bottles fell into the tub.What a surprise in the middle of the night! I have to think of something better for next time but for a first attempt this worked very well.

When your yarn is dry you can leave it in the hank but twist it up for storage OR like me if you prefer having your yarn in a center pull ball you can wind your yarn into a ball! Here is a photo of my yarn just quickly hand wound into a center pull ball. I find having in a yarn better because the yarn doesn`t get tangled as I knit but to each their own! 

Look at that! Beautiful! What a great way to give an out of date sweater a new life! I have a project in mind for some of this yarn and may even try hand dyeing on the rest. Stay tuned! 

Until then we would love to hear from you if you have tried this on your own, have suggestions for my next attempt, or have any other comments!

Happy Knitting!

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Unravel a Sweater to Recycle Yarn - Part 1

This is something that I have wanted to try for a while now and since the other half of the team (my wonderful fiancé!) is away being an army man what better opportunity to sneak more yarn into the house right? Our secret?

I have been reading a number of blogs on how to recycle/upcycle yarn from sweaters that are found at the thrift store and it seemed pretty straight-forward so here is my first attempt! 

First I started by cruising through the sweater collection at my local thrift shop looking for a sweater that had the colour and weight of yarn I was looking for. This is the sweater that I chose! Really it is a win win project too because I will get the yarn to use on my projects and profits generated from this sale benefit the Ontario Federation for Cerebral Palsy.

When you are looking for a sweater it is important to take note of how the sweater was constructed and the materials it is made of. A lot of what you will find in the thrift store is going to be machine knit material and you will have to look at the seams on the inside of the knit to see if it will be easy to take apart of not. This sweater was perfect and has the type of seam shown below. It is two edges of knitted fabric that have been joined together by thread or the same yarn used in the sweater:
Photo credit: http://www.learn2knit.co.uk/knitting/joining.php
Also you need to look at the condition of the yarn. If the piece is felted, or if it is a man made fibre and is really pilling, you will have a hard time unravelling the yarn. What you want to look for is when you stretch the fabric that you can see between the individual loops of the knit. If you look at my example this sweater has no sign of wear and you can see that all of the loops in the knit are clearly defined with no felting. 

You want to avoid a seam that is machine sewn because they are labour intensive to take apart. You also want to avoid a knit that is not continuous because when you take apart the seam you are left with short lengths of yarn instead of one continuous piece that you can wind into a large skein.

When you have selected your sweater get it home and locate your seam ripper! I found mine tucked away in the bottom of the sewing kit my mom gave me when I moved away to University. I bet you have one somewhere! If not I would suggest picking one up... this little guy is your new best friend!


Seam Ripper. Photo credit: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Seam_ripper.jpg

Start by turning your sweater inside-out, grab your seam ripper and get started! Start at a seam on the bottom of your sweater, pull the sides of the sweater so you can locate the thread or yarn connecting the seam. Cut this thread...

I was really lucky with this knit and I was able to pull out the yarn connecting the seam without any trouble. If you like you can go up the seam a little bit at a time until you are comfortable with the process. Sweaters are made in a variety of different ways so each seam could be a different experience but the main purpose of this stage is to take apart all of the seams in the sweater so that you have separated all of the individual pieces. My sweater came apart into 5 pieces with the 2 main torso portions, 2 arms and the collar of the sweater.

From this stage this knit was super easy to unravel. First I found the knots where the original knitter stopped working on each piece. I untied the knots leaving a piece of yarn I could pull to unravel the whole section. If the knot is too tricky to untie you can cut it to get the piece started. As the sweater was unravelled it looked more and more like those packages of ramen noodles we all ate through University! Yum! These twists and curls are from the yarn resting in the same shape of the knit sweater for so long. A good soak will help relax the yarn so don`t worry!


Since I am using this wool for my own projects I just wound it around my arm as I unravelled the piece. If you want to measure the yarn into a skein I would suggest making or finding yourself a niddy-noddy. 


This is all of the recycled yarn! Wow! 

Now at this point I am going to stop for the night. I have put the yarn in a bath to soak but I will include more about this process in Part 2! 
With that I will leave you with this photo. This is Oliver who is my handy little helper. Stay tuned for progress on this project! 

Happy Knitting!

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Valentine`s Day Surprise

Happy Valentine`s Day everyone!

We had a nice surprise this morning here at TheKnittedArts! It wasn`t chocolate or roses (although my soon-to-be hubby did make sure to cover those bases) this morning the Ottawa Metro News shared one of our knitting Tweets in their publication. The Tweet was about the completion of a new Yoda inspired knit cap. Check out the share here:

This knit has been a very popular item for us here at TheKnittedArts! This one in particular is ready to ship and fits a toddler (50cm around x 21cm long). We also offer this knit as a PDF pattern available now in Newborn and Toddler sizes! 
Thank you to Metro News Ottawa for the share and we hope you all enjoy this new knit! Let us know about your special knitting project at TheKnittedArts@gmail.com

Happy Knitting!

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Yoda Inspired Knitting

Good morning everyone!
Today I wanted to talk a little bit about one of our most popular knits right now. This knit is inspired by the Star Wars film series and the great Jedi master character of Yoda. This knit started as a personal request from a soon-to-be mom from Ottawa, Ontario. She was very keen on having a cute Yoda knit for her upcoming arrival. 

We started by browsing the Internet for ideas about how to tackle this project. A lot of the examples out there just were not my cup of tea though so I just went back to the drawing board and started from scratch! This is a photo of our first Yoda knit...


This knit was a hit with the client and her family and soon gathered a following on our social media outlets. It was not long before we had another request for this knit as well as the pattern for the knit. This in itself was a problem for me personally because I am a self taught knitter and have never really used patterns. The creation of a pattern was a huge learning process for me! What an adventure!
Soon we conquered this challenge and now are able to offer this pattern on our online shop.
Click here to see Etsy listing
 As you can see this knit has evolved since the first attempt shown above. I really like the new shape of the ears in the later two examples. The ears are three dimensional and support themselves when the hat is on, which is really nice! Who likes droopy Yoda ears right?
Currently we have one ready to ship Yoda inspired baby beanie in stock for a 3-6 month old baby. You can check it out: Click here to see Etsy listing

Thank you to our Ottawa mom for this fun project! We also would like to thank everyone who has expressed interest in this knit. If you have any ideas for fun projects for us to try we would love to hear from you! You can comment on this blog or send us an email at TheKnittedArts@gmail.com

Happy Knitting!

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Sweet Little Fuzzy Owl Hat

Good morning everyone! Here is a super fun little project I would like to share!
We found this great yarn at a sale and immediately I had this project in mind. To find it yourself it is made by Red Heart and is from their Fur Sure collection because it gives a faux fur look. The grey and white colour that we used for this hat is called Frosted.

This hat was created as a simple knit, made on circular needles, with a folded edge for a top instead of a traditional decreased and rounded top. The bulky nature of the yarn makes the hat super cozy and warm! The details of the face were added after the completion of the hat by using solid colour acrylic yarn crocheted to the desired shape. 

We are really happy with the end result! This cute little knit is sized for a 6 month old baby is now up on our Etsy shop. Happy knitting everyone!
Frosted, Fur Sure, Red Heart Yarn

Thursday, February 07, 2013

It`s Blog Time!

Hey everyone!
My name is Sarah and I love to knit! I am a beginner and am learning along the way but I hope that you will enjoy sharing my journey through this blog. My fiancé and I make up TheKnittedArts team. I run the needles and he is an endless supply of ideas! We create hand crafted knitwear and would love to share the stories of our little knitted creatures with you on this blog!

I hope that you will enjoy hearing about our journey and we would love to hear from you along the way! If you have any comments, ideas or if you are interested in any of the pieces featured on this blog you can contact us at TheKnittedArts@gmail.com

Happy Knitting!