Posted by sun bear on 2004-05-20 13:26:14
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I think you're better off, it's hard to unravel sleeves, then again if it was handmade maybe they were done on circulars or something, but it's also hard to knit with yarn that needs to be joined together every 3 rows...
I also keep stuff around that I'm waiting to fix...alot of the time I'm scared to try to make something on my sewing machine b/c I'm convinced I'll screw up. The funny thing is, then it just looks bad and i have cloth sitting about. It's amazing I fix/do anything.
But in a success story I took a cashmere sweater that had too long/fraying cuffs and a hole in the tummy and cut off half of the cuffs and unraveled enough to make thread to fix the hole, it's not perfect, but it got done and I wore the sweater several times in the winter...free cashmere sweater...great deal :) but since it had been knitted and sewn into a tube i kept getting mini pieces of yarn which were not at all helpful had I wanted to reknit it into something else.
Posted by craftfetish on 2006-10-10 11:11:49
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I'm learning as I go on this too. I felted a cashmere sweater that had a few moth holes this weekend. It took 4 or 5 wash cycles, but it came out so soft and pretty.
I'm planning to hand sew the edges with a blanket stitch. My sewing machine is really old and probably not up to the task of stitching through felt, plus I like the idea of a folkier edge.
There are lots of other sewing aficionados here that will probably weigh in with actual machine tips.
Posted by Kari on 2004-11-17 23:22:54
Post Subject: What to do with a cashmere sweater?
Hi crafty ladies,
I have this cashmere sweater that my mom gave me a few Christmases ago, but it is way huge and shaped weird. It is light gray. Any ideas of what I could do with it? My sister suggested a pillow, but I don't know how gray will go with our decor (and seems a little boring, yes?).
Posted by nataxia on 2004-12-28 15:50:14
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I am forever a two-tone girl (i call it affectionately, "reverse skunk") 'cause no one warned me how expensive upkeep is on platinum hair (done at a salon) make sure you have a good stylist, even if it's free, the first salon i went to charged me ninety dollars and burned the shit out of my scalp and my cashmere sweater and my hair came out all brassy and uneven so i had to go to another salon a few days later to have them fix it, which cost another hundred dollars... then i was poor for awhile and couldn't afford the root maintenance so i let it grow out a bit and finally had a paycheck that didn't need to go anywhere so i went back to the salon where they worked on my roots for about four hours and charged me $180... and needless to say, it's touch up time and I have a friend who just graduated cosmetology school and I'm going to let her try fixing me and if it gets botched somehow I'm going back to the punk-rock red hair I had throughout high school....
I say go for it, it's fun to be a bombshell, but make sure you condition your hair like crazy or it will break... be prepared for some severe dandruff the second week or so bleach dries out the scalp really bad, get a bottle of the purple toner shampoo to combat brassiness, be prepared to spend some $$$ for up keep, and always keep a dear friend nearby to fight off all the male attention....
Posted by Nancy Flynn on 2006-03-07 14:40:00
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i wash all of my cashmere sweaters in cold water, in sweater bags, with baby shampoo-- the people at a Scottish Cashmere sweater shop told me this, and it really does work like a charm. Baby shampoo is nice and gentle, but still gets it clean and good-smelling.
I find this also makes regular (sometimes itchy) wool sweaters softer.
Posted by ChristineRenee on 2005-10-09 23:38:32
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In Chicago the best thrift store for quality of stuff is definitely the Brown Elephant (benefits an AIDS clinic called Howard Brown). But for price nothing beats the Unique thrift stores on Mondays when everything is half price. (But be prepared for mass chaos and super long lines.)
My most recent great find was a dingy white cashmere sweater that I frogged, dyed with kool-aid and made 4 really nice scarves out of. They're going to be Christmas gifts. I never could have afforded to buy that much cashmere yarn at a fancy yarn store. I think the sweater cost me $2.
Posted by amygdala on 2004-12-26 10:31:28
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I mostly celebrate Hanukkah, but my dad isn't Jewish, so my sister and I do Xmas with him every year (the only good thing for me about growing up in an interfaith home was that once my parents split, there was none of that nasty fighting about who to spend Xmas/Hanukkah with).
So for Hanukkah, from mom, sis, and bf:
Ice tongs, wine decanter, wine bottle chiller (bf)
Thai cookbook with really nice pictures and subscription to Bon Appetit (yay!) (sister)
Black cashmere sweater, Le Crueset 5 qt. casserole dish, burgundy velvet gloves, belt, socks, and a great black Tahari suit (that she totally scored at TJ Maxx for mad cheap, I'm so proud!)(mom)
And Xmas, all from Dad, who is still trying to buy my love back since he disowned me for a few years after the divorce:
Black and pink PJs with matching slippers, Simpsons trivia calendar, Trivial Pursiut 90s edition, America: The book (woohoo!), the Far Side wall calendar, and....AN IPOD! The ipod was the only thing I actually asked for. And he's sending me the port thingy that you can use to hook up the ipod through the FM frequency to the stereo, I guess the store was out.
The best was that my mom, sister, and I celebrated make-up Hanukkah on Christams eve, so I got to eat latkes and roast chicken on Christmas Eve, then we tried to avoid all the Christmas holiday programming that took over the airwaves.
