Friday, April 06, 2012

Reclamation and refurbishment 1

I don't often buy knitwear. I knit a lot and have so much yarn stashed in the house that I've taken to calling it insulation and am contemplating getting Kevin McCloud round to do a feature on my sustainable approach to tackling keeping the house warm.

But, I do love a bargain and a poke around in a charity shop. Not going to tell you where my favourite ones are in case you get there before me. Last year, I was almost attacked in a branch of Age UK. I found a size 10 merino dress from East. Still had the £97 price tag on and was still on the website. AgeUK price :£9.99. I picked it up and continued to browse, when a larger woman tried to take it our of my hands.
'Are you buying this?' 
'Yes,'
'But I like it,'
'I like it too, it's in my hands and it's my size,'
'I don't care what size it it, for that price, it can stretch! Are you sure you're buying it?'
'Yes!'

I've had a lot of wear and pleasure from that dress this winter.

Anyway, last week's bargain was a sweater from Pachamama. I've always had a love for their sweaters, but they are expensive, usually too big for me now, and (shhh, say it quietly) quite badly made.
I bought this one - looks like it was never worn - for less than half the price of a ball of Malabrigo (which is the closest I can get to the yarn.)





Needless to say, it was huge on me.
So, I frogged it.
Do you know how horrible frogging badly-knitted intarsia is? Very horrible.

I reskeined it, washed it and rewound it.
I've got more than 700g of the pink and about 200g in total of the other colours.
I'm just waiting for inspiration, now.

2 comments:

freda said...

Smart. Smart. Smart. I love to thrift shop. Goodwill is like cheap therapy. They even have a website now. You might enjoy a browse through shopgoodwill.com

ravelling said...

There's lots of good stuff there. Oxfam has a similar website over here. I love charity shops!