Just starting...

I've decided to start a knitting blog. I'd like to post about what I'm working on, what I'm learning and what I want to do and learn!
I've been knitting for a LONG time, about 35 years. I was stalled out, not learning anything new, for many years and then I discovered Ravelry and my Stitch 'N Bitch group. In the past year, I've learned all kinds of new things from knitting with two round needles, knitting with the magic loop, frogging sweaters and so much more.
Being an avid recycler, I accidentally discovered frogging. That's when you take something apart that is already knit. I started buying sweaters at local thrift shops and yard sales, frogged them and made new things from them.

That's a 100% cashmere sweater I frogged. by the way, it's called frogging because you "rrrrrrrrip it, rrrrrrip it!" The yarn was very thin, lace weight. But if it's wound up on a ball winder and doubled, it is an easier weight to use. I paid $2.25 for this sweater on half price day at Goodwill. Baltimore area Goodwill stores are half price the last Saturday of the month. So a sweater that is normally $4.50 (still not a bad price for cashmere wool!) is only $2.25. If you get a really good deal, you can find a men's or an XXL ladies sweater. Unfortunately, this cashmere sweater was an extra small! It still gave me enough yarn for a couple nice scarves. Try buying cashmere in a yarn store and see how much it is.
You have to be really careful when you frog cashmere. It is very easy to break the yarn when you are unraveling it if you do it vigorously.

I also learned about recycling another way. You can cut up old t-shirts and knit with giant-sized needles and make rugs. You can cut the yarn smaller and use maybe a 13 or a 15 needle, but I cut the shirts about 1" wide. Cutting plastic bags can yield "plarn" or plastic yarn that can be knit too. I found the instruction on cutting plastic bags and applied the same idea to the T-shirts. Here's an article I wrote about it. I had a great time knitting with the plastic bags. The only bad things are that it makes a crinkling noise that kind of sounds like a baby walking in a diaper. It also turns your hands black from the ink on the bags. The T-shirts shed a million little "pills" all over everything. Once you wash the rug, it doesn't make a mess any more. But when you cut the shirts and when you knit with it, it's a little messy.

This is a nice rug made from tie-dyed shirts. It has a big cable running down the center of it. It was fun to make and only took about 4 hours to knit. It also took about 4 hours to cut up the T-shirts (and vacuum the pills).