My first recycled jumper

Had a spending spree at the weekend with the garden centre vouchers we got at Christmas and splurged on things which you get a return from in the form of food - most important. So I had a busy afternoon planting white and redcurrant bushes, raspberry canes, strawberry plants, brussel sprouts (discovered I liked them after all!), and leeks. So what happens to all this hard work - you guessed it! George decides to be as helpful as always and roll over my leeks at every opportunity. What a sacrifice he makes to help with the attainment of food from our garden!


The leeks don't stand a chance!

After reading the tutorial on how to recycle a jumper on Ashley's blog I decided to go for it when I spotted a jumper in the Barnardo's charity shop on Union Street. It had all the right sort of seams and was a reasonably thickish yarn to make a first attempt easier and for £3 it seemed like a bargain. It was a size 12 (I'm an 8 so I reckoned that would give me loads extra than what I need) and a cotton/acrylic mix - I'm no yarn snob, if it's pretty I like it!


The jumper I bought

Here it is outside in about to kick off on the cutting. I did take photos when it was in pieces but as they were woefully out of focus they've been binned.


Inside out - ready to go

Robert hammered some nails in for me to make my fancy skein winder/measuring device. It did the job perfectly.


Figuring out "how much is there?"

I washed it to hopefully get the worst of the kinks out.


Hanging up to dry

And this is it rolled up in skeins before the washing malarky so you can see how much there is - just under 700m. What a bargain. Now the fun begins of thinking what I can make with it. So many ideas so little time. If only I could spend all my days knitting, gardening and cooking I would be happy but unfortunately the big wide world insists that we pay our way on a day-to day basis so I'm screwed like everybody else out there!


Look how much there is!

And what could be better to end off the day than have a cuddle with Wally - the big sook! A total freck o'dirt (to use an Orcadian expression).


Cuddles from Wally