Things I do that make Matt say, “Seriously?” (part 1)

This is part one of a four part series that I have planned. The title for this series is (as evidenced above) “Things I do that make Matt say, “Seriously?” Obviously there are more than four things that I do, but these have been the biggest ones lately. Today’s “Seriously?” is about yarn (imagine that!)

I have an obsession with yarn, I think. As evidenced in this post, I have way too much and just don’t always get around to doing anything with it. I know I have a bad habit of collecting yarn and then letting it sit. One day in a moment of insanity, I told Matt, “I’m going on a yarn diet. I won’t get any new yarn until I finish up some of my projects.”

He agreed. He was all for it.

I did try to be good. I honestly did. But I also read a lot of message boards on Ravelry.com. And one of them is all about how to get yarn cheaply by unraveling sweaters found at thrift shops. And my short downward spiral started there.

Cue closet clean out time: I spent a few days going through clothes and sorting them into three piles—keep, donate, and toss. I was going through the donate pile and refolding all the clothes to put into boxes and I came across a sea-foam green sweater. I could tell by the feel of it that it was a mostly cotton yarn. I looked at the tag, and found I was correct in my assumption. 60% cotton and 40% acrylic. This would be perfect first sweater from which to harvest yarn!

I looked around. No one was in sight. I put the sweater aside on top of my sewing box. I was going to unravel the thing and just see how much and what quality yarn I would get out of it. I finished boxing up the donate pile and grabbed the sweater and my seam ripper. I was happily undoing the seams when Matt asked me, “What are you doing?”

Caught! “Um…I’m taking this apart to see how it was all put together?”

I knew as I said it that even though that was ONE of the reasons, Matt would know that wasn’t the real reason. So, I quickly added, “And to get the yarn from it.”

Matt just looked at me and said, “Seriously?”

He was not amused by my excuse.

“But it’s not NEW yarn!”

While correct, it was obvious I was trying to justify taking it apart.

I did a good amount of yarn from it:

That’s a whole lot of yarn to use up!

And I’ve only ever unraveled something one other time, and that will probably be the last time. This sweater dress I got at the thrift shop:

The yarn in this told me it didn’t want to be a sweater dress anymore. What I really liked was the really dark stuff toward the bottom.

Turned into this:

Not much yarn this time, and full of knots!

And it was while I was unraveling the sweater dressed that I found not everything is meant to be unraveled like that. The yarn from the sweater dress is filled with knots and is so fuzzy I don’t know that I will be able to make anything from it.

Now I KNOW I can be good about not bringing in other yarn. Although…