STR, Recycled yarn, and smiling faces

I thought it was about time to tell you a little about what I've been up to here..... aside from making tutorials.

I have been working away on my STR (Socks that Rock) socks. This was my gift skein in Lagoon. I must say that I adore the yarn, and adore the color way. It has a very tight twist, but unlike with crochet cotton (which it kind of looks like with that tight twist) it makes very soft, fat, bouncy stitches. It doesn't split and is really a dream to knit with. Too bad it is so expensive, or I'd be knitting everything with this yarn. I'm absolutely serious.

I have also decided to try my hand at recycling yarn. For those of you that don't know what this is, it is essentially frogging sweaters to scavenge the yarn and then using that yarn to make something else. I've read quite a bit about it, and how it can allow yarn snobs to live on a strict budget. I went to the DAV the other day and bought 9 sweaters at $.98 each. I consider that a very good yarn purchase...lol Even if I mess some of these sweaters up, I still got my money worth. Most of my yarn is still in sweater form, but I'm not going to let that stop me! To recycle the yarn, you undo the seams of the sweater and unravel it. You then soak it in hot soapy water to release all the kinks. I used baby shampoo because it's very mild and has a pleasant scent :D You then hang it up to dry. The white yarn has been drying now for over 24 hours, and I'm getting a little impatient with it.

So far I have ripped apart 2 of the sweaters. One was a women's shell 60% silk, 40% rayon. It is beautiful yarn. Liquid drape and gorgeous sheen. I've found, though, that with the 2 sweaters I've unraveled that they like to knit several strands of lace weight yarn together. This sweater has 3 strands, making it about sport weight I think, maybe light worsted. It is hard to get a picture that truly shows the beauty of the yarn. I can't wait until it fully drys and I can wind it into balls. It tells me that it wants to become this:
I know that I don't have the full 1200 yards, or am pretty sure. I haven't actually measured my yarn yet. I think I might have closer to 700. I think it'll still be beautiful as a smaller wrap though :D

The blue recycled yarn is 100% cotton. The sweater was brand new. It still had inspector stickers on the inside, and when I washed it, it bled a little bit into the water. At first I thought that I wanted to make a nice baby blanket from it, but I'm having second thoughts and thinking maybe of a Picovoli for me. The original sweater was knit at about 6 stitches to the inch, which isn't too far off from the required 22 per 4 inches of the pattern.

The sweaters that have yet to be frogged include:

1. Grey cowl neck women's sweater 31% Nylon, 29% Rayon, 23% Angora, 8% Lambs Wool
2. Powder pink women's cardigan 78% Silk, 13% Angora, 9% Nylon
3. Blue, black, and white twisted yarn women's cowl neck sweater 70% Lambswool, 20% Angora, 10% Cashmere
4. Navy blue men's sweater 40% Wool, 15% Nylon, 10% Cashmere
5. Blue heathered women's cardigan 100% Lambswool (This one is about lace weight and will become a shawl or scarf)
6. Red/whine men's heathered sweater 100% Shetland Wool
7. Creamy tan slightly heathered men's sweater 100% Merino wool!
   

Now for the smiling faces:
We're going to the zoo this afternoon, but the kids don't know it yet. Just imagine the smiles when we tell them! I wonder if all that walking will send me into labor..... we can only hope :D