my (nearly) new knit

One of my new year's resolutions was to do some wool recycling, and to reknit one of my old jumpers.

I wasn't really planning to do this so soon, but something about this grasped me and i started unpicking this cardigan you can see me wearing in this picture (and holding a baby - little lyra that is. she will be much more grown up now i expect)

It was originally knitted in pre blog days, and i really loved it for a while and wore it quite a lot. However, it was an early attempt at working out my own knitting pattern (and before i got this book) and more recently i have been not so keen on it's shape.

But i still love the wool (it's collinette art in colourway mist), and so what better action than to reknit to a better design.

However, due to the age of the original cardigan (i think perhaps three years) it was well set in it's ways and very crinkly when unravelled. The first attempt to knit with it produced some very lumpy bumpy results.

I wasn't really sure how to straighten it out, but wrapped it around the back of a chair and sat it near a radiator for about a week and although not completely flat, it is much much better now.

here you can see the wool - round the chair - near the radiator!

I went about choosing my pattern in a bit of a backwards way. I made a tension square and worked out that i needed about 80 stitches for the back. and then i found this pattern which uses 84... 

from woolworths!

The children's versions are knitted in DK, but as my wool is aran weight (or was when it was new - perhaps slightly finer for having been knitted already) so scales up to my size when knitted on the slightly bigger needles (at least i hope this is the plan) I am quite confident as remember my experience when scaling up the baby cardigan.

And i've made a good start i think. I will have to be careful as think i have lost some wool in the unpicking. Perhaps the short sleeve jumper version will be the best option, but i think that this is quite an economical pattern to knit - i hope there will be enough for the little collar though.

I am looking forward to wearing these colours again.

Yours thriftily,
Emily

xxx