Synth Green Art Walk Cardi

Finally when I saw a picture the Art Walk Cardi by Hannah FettigI knew what to make with the yarn from my half unraveled synthetic green sweater from the 80's. I had come a long way of endless swatching in search of a nice stitch that would work with this yarn and colour. Seed stitch variations turned out either too vintage, old-fashioned or boring to work with the colour. More textured swatching made the fabric look like a forest or lawn. Now here was something (the Art Walk Cardi) in a super simple texture stitch which just worked perfect.

Synth Green Art Walk Cardi by Knitbitch

I admit I totally copy catted it. To buy the pattern on Ravelry I had to buy an e-book with a total of 13 patterns, so I simply looked at the pictures and played it by "ear" or in this case rather eye. Also I decided to just finish all the yarn, so the Cardi became a bit longer. The cropped version looks younger and fresher, but this longer version probably fits my figure better.

Synth Green Art Walk Cardi by Knitbitch

Synth Green Art Walk Cardi by Knitbitch

this is my sweater from the 80's that I unravelled

reknit nr 5, cardigan nr 2

Here'a one of my newer re-knitting projects, well it's sort of last year, but I just didn't post about it yet. But maybe first a short recap about what re-knitting is. You take yarn that has already been used for something and then un-ravel it. You can i.e. buy a sweater at the salvation army or you can take some of your own old projects that are not "fresh"  anymore and then use the yarn for a new project. Sometimes I just get old sweaters from people because they think they are ugly and then I knit something new from it.

So I had this quite nice twin-set made from a beautiful linen yarn. I probably made it 20-25 years ago, wore it a lot. But I haven't been wearing it for the last 15-20 years. It has just been lying around in a drawer, couldn't throw it away, cause the yarn was too nice.

well so I unravelled it, even though it hurt a bit, it was a very difficult, intricate ajour pattern, and I turned it into a sort of plaid wrap-around extra long cardigan, knitted in a brioche-stitch with a turn to make it a bit tighter.

photography by Inge Noordijk

New cardigan, close-up of "natural" water-fall collar

new cardigan, showing how the linen-yarn and horizontal knitting makes it fall real heavy

new cardigan, laid out flat, you really see how the plaid-pattern is worked out.

old twin-set, sorry for bad picture quality

blouse of the old twin-set

close-up of the complicated ajour-pattern of the old blouse

Reknit project 4

let me start backwards with project reknit project 4. The last one I completed. This WAS an awful old shawl from my mum, probably from the dark stoneages of the 70's, at least I remember her wearing it when I was a kid. Really old-fashioned in both colors and style.

Firstly I unraveled this shawl and that was quite something, because it's made of an untwined type of irregular wool it really sticks together so it took me quite some effort. By the way the un-twinedness is exactly why I spend the effort, it gives the work a beautiful handmade texture. And where I live now, they don't sell this type of yarn. It's not that it wouldn't be impossible to get hold of over the internet, it's just that I like the other way more. Not wasting anything. Not throwing a beautiful and useful material away. Just upcycling it into something new.

It was turned into a poncho for my sister. So the yarn also jumped a generation. My sister loves the poncho (she still owes me in-use photos though!!) The knitting itself was quite some work, as it was knitted on thin needles. It's also in the nature of my work that I do things over several times, because I knit without a recipy, just let the work appear in front of my eyes, and guessing how to continue. Obviously that doesn't always go well. And then I unravel and do it again. And again. And again. Until I get it right.