🤖 🧶 Machine Knitting - v1 Sweater Materials
Apparently I’m in the business of re-knitting sweaters from teenage mall stores? The primary yarn for my first ‘waste’ sweater, knitted last month, was from Abercrombie & Fitch. This time around I’m unravelling a sweater from American Eagle Outfitters. Totally unintentional but I’m kind of loving the throwback? Keeping my eyes peeled for a Hollister sweater next… 👀
For this iteration I wanted to dig deeper into the idea of ‘waste’ materials. The 100% lambswool sweater I unravelled last month (sourced from a thrift store) was hardly ‘waste’. It was in good shape and would've gone to a new home had I not picked it up. Eventually it would’ve made its way downstream to a mechanical recycling process and reconstituted into 'new' wool yarn (more on that in a future newsletter).
This American Eagle sweater I sourced from Fabscrap*, on the other hand, was heavily damaged and made of a less valuable fiber (synthetic, likely acrylic). I thought it’d be a (fun) challenge to turn it into something cool.
A few process notes:
The sweater cost ~$2 (Fabscrap sells damaged/mendable garments for $5/lb)
I decided to start tracking my time; disassembling, unravelling, and winding took ~4.5 hours in sum total
I used a yarn swift to speed up the unravelling and re-winding process. Yarn swifts keep yarn from tangling (see below top)
I raided my stash of leftover yarn for complementary colors to incorporate into this project, and will add in some neutrals and a couple of neons for pop (see bellow bottom)
I haven’t had a chance to try scrap yarn techniques with my new-to-me knitting machine yet, so I’m looking forward to experimenting - I’ll be sharing more on this next week.
*Fabscrap is a textile recycling non-profit based here in Brooklyn. Fabscrap collects pre-consumer textile waste from fashion brands (i.e. excess fabric, fabric swatches, and sample clothing) and engages volunteers to manually sort this waste. Excess fabric and mendable clothing samples are sold on-site, and everything else is sent to be downcycled (in this case chopped up and turned into insulation).
Threads of exploration
Tracking materials usage:
I created a database to document the yarn and materials I’m using for this project, as well as the deadstock and scrap yarn I’ve started to accumulate.Â
I've also started to record the amount of yarn used per sweater (measured by weight, in grams).
Until next week,
Anne