The Process: Sweater Deconstruction Part 1-Selection

Going to thrift stores and flea markets is in my blood.  My Dad and his Dad spent many Sunday mornings wheeling and dealing at the local flea market when my Dad was a young man, and my Dad and I have gone all around Sacramento looking for the best deals.  A few years ago, due partly to my thrifty nature and partly to my love of thrift stores, I began taking apart thrift store sweaters and repurposing the yarn for knitting projects.  As far as cost goes, even the cheapest acrylic is no match for a thrifted sweater:  a men’s large can yield more than 1200 yards of yarn, and usually only costs between 4 and 6 dollars.  There are often luxury fibers to be had, such as cashmere, alpaca, and angora.  Even color usually isn’t a problem, as a trip to the dyepot can solve most anything.

When looking for sweaters that are appropriate for repurposing, there are a few key points to remember.  While none of these are an absolute must, remember they may make your job harder and may compromise how hard wearing the knitted item is once you remake it.

1.  Look for crochet seams.  When choosing a sweater, flip up the hem and take a good look at the side seam to see how the sweater is constructed.  It should look like a handmade sweater in that the front and back are discrete pieces that have been seamed instead of pieces cut from knit fabric and sewn together with a serger.  This is a crochet seam:

Serged seams look like the side seams in T-shirts.  While it’s possible to reuse serged yarn, the serging cuts the yarn and makes it into a bunch of short pieces instead of one long piece.  You just have to be willing to tie all the pieces together.

2. Avoid holes.  Holes of any sort can indicate structural problems with the yarn.  If it’s an animal fiber, they may well be moth holes.  The holes you can see are sometimes joined by weakened yarn you can’t see.  If it’s really lovely yarn you can’t pass up, it’s better to use it for a scarf or something that doesn’t need to hold up any weight.

3. Stains aren’t always a problem.  If the stains are near an opening, like the neck or the bottom of a sleeve, it’s usually worth missing out on a couple yards of yarn.  However, stains in the main body of the sweater can cause lots of wasted yarn.  Like anything else, if you’re willing to work around it go for it.

4. Look out for sewn tags.  Though it’s usually not a problem, some companies go pretty nuts when attaching tags to their sweaters.  I’d really, really, really suggest having a seam ripper on hand when taking apart sweaters, especially if you decide to tackle one of those sweaters whose tag is sewn down on all four sides with two lines of stitches.

As a final suggestion, I’d recommend starting your deconstructive journey with a bulky cotton sweater, as cotton sweaters are easier to take apart.  There is no fuzz to obscure the stitches and no worry of moth holes compromising the integrity of the yarn.  So peruse your local thrift stores sweater section and look for your next project!

The Process: Dyeing Thrifted Yarn

When looking for sweaters to repurpose, it can be annoying to find something that fits every criteria…but you hate the color.  With commercial yarn, it’s easy enough to just find a colorway that sings to you and work from there; however, it can be difficult to find the perfect color when limited to what the thrift store has on hand.  This dilemma is made easier with the power of dyeing.  There are several types of dyes and methods you can use to change the color of your thrifted yarn from ‘bleh’ to pretty depending on the fiber content, how much fiber you have and whether or not you are willing to dedicate kitchen equipment to dyeing only.  We’ll start with the most basic and nontoxic dyeing method I know of.

1.  Kool Aid/food coloring  Dying

As the name implies, you can use powdered envelopes of Kool Aid and food coloring to dye animal fibers (protein fibers).  Unfortunately, neither dyes plant fibers very well, so it’s use is somewhat limited.  A tutorial will come another day, but as a warning, only use the little envelopes that require sugar to be added.  If you use the kind with the sugar pre-mixed in, it may caramelize from the heat and ruin your yarn.  I would also avoid using the gel food coloring, unless you check to make sure it doesn’t have sugar added.

This horizontal scarf is made from two colors of yarn dyed with food coloring.  The blue is space dyed with neon blue and a touch of green, and the yellow is dyed with yellow and neon orange.  A close-up shows how the colors are nice and mottled.

There will be a tutorial for this type of dyeing at a later date, but it’s pretty easy, and best of all, since all the materials are food safe, there is no need to use dedicated pots or work outside.  It’s also a great project to do with kids.

2. Direct Dyeing with Rit dye and the like

While the may not be the most color-fast dyes out there, Rit dyes and other direct dyes have an advantage in that they are very easy to get ahold of and aren’t super toxic.  These types of dyes will also work for both animal and plant fibers, unlike food coloring.  While I wouldn’t use a pot intended for food, I have used my kitchen sink filled with hot water to dye yarn.  Here are the steps to dye your thrifted yarn with bottled Rit dye.

First, if your yarn is in balls, put it into hanks.  You can use a niddy noddy, the end of a table, or other appropriately sized piece of furniture.  The yarn in these pictures is a 100% nubbly silk that’s going to be a tank top eventually.  It started out a hideous color of salmon pink.

Save out about 10 yards or so of your yarn so you can do the next step, testing colors before you over-dye the whole lot.

Over-dyeing works by overshadowing the initial color, meaning the new color will be darker than the old color.  Because it can be hard to gauge what the new color will look like until it’s out of the dye bath, I’d recommend always testing your dye first.

In this case, I made two mini hanks to test four colors, purple, navy blue, kelly green and wine.  I felt comfortable using glass mixing bowls for this, as glass is nonreactive and nonporous.  To being the dyeing process, get your yarn thoroughly wet with hot water, washing it beforehand if it’s really dirty.  Put enough hot water in your dyeing vessel to comfortably cover the fiber, and add some dye.  Swirl the yarn a little to mix the dye and let everything sit for about 10 minutes or so.  Remember, this is just a test to see what the dye will look like.

 

After letting the yarn sit, empty the dye bath and rinse the yarn well, preferably until the water rinses clear.  Hang up your mini skeins and let them dry, as wet yarn looks different than dry yarn.  Once the yarn is dry, take a look and decide what color you like best.  This will be the color you dye the batch with.  I liked the purple.

In order from top to bottom, kelly green, navy blue, wine and purple.  The bent ends are the undyed portion that sat on the rim of the bowl.  Even though it’s a little blurry, you can really see how the dye color and the color of the yarn combine to make weird things sometimes.

To dye the remainder of your yarn, wash it if it’s dirty, the repeat the test steps, only on a larger scale.

 

It helps to swirl the yarn around in the dye bath to ensure all the sides are dyed equally, flipping it over if you have to.  Rinse the yarn well, and hang it to dry.  After it’s dry, you can wind the hanks into balls and admire the pretty colors.

It’s a little less neon in person though, but I like it far more than the original pink.

3. The last method for dyeing yarn is to use the powdered reactive dyes available from specialty stores or online.  So far, I don’t have any experience with these types of dyes, so I will keep my comments to a minimum.  I only know some of these dyes do need to be used with dedicated equipment because of a toxicity factor.  Some brands may also require the use of a face mask to avoid breathing in the dust.

There you have it, the first installment of using and processing thrifted yarn!  Soon to come is a tutorial on taking apart a sweater, what to look for, and what to avoid.