Several weeks ago I posted about unraveling old sweaters for yarn, which is great fun! But now I have a warning to add. Check the side seams first… the seams that run from the armpit down to the bottom of the sweater… to make sure they are not cut!
I started to unravel a sweater only to find that the side seams had been cut and serged, rather than properly knit and sewn together. The result is that each row you rip out will be a separate piece of yarn. I checked a few other sweaters and, sure enough, I found more cut seams. So… learn from my mistake and check the seam first!
You can recognize the bad ones because there will usually be little ends of yarn sticking out all the way down the seam. They will also be serged rather than sewn. Here are some examples of the seams of sweaters that can and cannot be unraveled. But don’t let this scare you! Unraveling sweaters is fun!!
Froggable:
Non-froggable:
8 responses so far ↓
1 Amanda // Jun 9, 2004 at 5:40 pm
I found this out the hard way! I found a sweater at Good Will made out of some beautiful gray yarn (hideous sweater, but gorgeous yarn!). I got it home and was having the darndest time trying to get the seams undone. I think you can guess why!
2 Stacie // Jun 14, 2004 at 8:24 am
I love your cute little yarn tomato! How adorable!
3 Julie // Jun 9, 2004 at 2:43 am
I’m safe! If I ever get around to frogging the sweaters, I should be fine. Thanks for the pictures. :)
4 Megan // Jun 13, 2004 at 4:32 pm
I’ve been having such trouble finding sweaters at all at Goodwill. Thanks for the pictures. Now if I do find anything, I’ll be sure to know what to look for.
5 susan in pa // Jun 9, 2004 at 6:32 pm
Thx for the tip & photos (very helpful)! I will keep it tucked away for future reference.
6 Jenn // Jun 9, 2004 at 10:30 pm
Ugh – I’ve learned the same lesson and the hard way too. It’s so hard to find wool sweaters in the thrift stores here in Southern California that when I finally found one I jumped on it, and didn’t check the seems. I’ve now seen the error of my ways. But since I wanted it so I could try some felting I think I can still use the yarn – even if it is in small pieces. We’ll see though. For now it’s sitting in a bag waiting for me to decide what to do with it.
7 Missy // Jun 12, 2004 at 12:33 am
Wow, thanks for that useful information! I’ll keep that in mind in the future, for sure. ^_^
8 Amy // Jun 9, 2004 at 5:49 pm
Yow! I’ve run into the same thing. Frogged a gorgeous Scottish wool sweater and ended up with a lot of “shorty” pieces. Gonna try spit-splicing them at some point.
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