Earth Day Efforts

Every year, in April, our world celebrates our home, the Earth. Because our natural resources are not limitless, we must focus on reducing our consumption, reusing whatever we are able to, and responsibly recycling as much as we possibly can. I do my part. I turn off lights. I compost.

In my efforts to declutter my home and wardrobe, I regularly give away clothing that I do not wear. Last week, I pulled this sweater, handknit by me several years ago, from the sweater shelf and evaluated its continued presence in my closet. Epic failure. I never wear it because 1) the neck is too tight, 2) the arms are too short, 3) length? too short, 4) it is too wide through the body, 5) and too tightly knit on needles too small for the bulkiness of the yarn. Out that denim colored 100% wool sweater went-- in to the giveaway bag.

With Earth Day approaching, I contemplated the idea of recycling used sweaters to create new items. I've done it before. Felting wool sweaters I've found at the thrift store, I have designed and sewn bags and purses and given them as gifts to appreciative friends and family members. Once, I tried to unravel a sweater knitted with the loveliest yarn, only to discover that it had actually been cut and sewn from a length of stockinette knitting which made it useless to try to recover all those short lengths of yarn. My mind wandered to the giveaway pile in the front coat closet and I thought, "Someone will really score with that denim wool sweater."

Aha! Why can't that someone be ME?

I retrieved the sweater (I do love that yarn!), picked at the woven ends and unraveled the whole sweater. Six large skeins of curly, kinky strands.

I tried not to think about the fact that every one of those curls meant a stitch I had knitted once before. Thousands upon thousands of knits and purls.

Now I am hunting for the next perfect pattern to reknit the denim wool yarn into the next perfect sweater. This time, I will pay more attention to gauges and measurements. And in this way, I will be honoring Earth Day as well.