Polishing, frogging and keeping it warm

I mentioned in my last post that I had bought a few things last week.  

The first thing that caught my eye was a cotton sweater that looked good for unraveling.  Here's a tutorial in case you're interested in doing this yourself.  I made sure that the seams weren't serged, but separate finished pieces sewn together.   That's how I *thought* it was put together, but not really.   The back and sides had been cut at the top seams, so I ended up wasting a bit of yarn getting through to the body of the sweater.   I also wasted a bit of yarn on the top yoke, as it had a buttonhole that had been cut into it rather than a knitted button opening.  All in all, it took about two hours to completely unravel but since my time is pretty cheap these days, totally worth it.

 

Here's the sweater, pre complete-frogging.   The yarn looks to be a white cotton ribbon that has brown thread woven over the ribbon.  The yarn looks very oatmeal-y.

A few more pictures showing the progress.  You can see the cut threads on the top of the front piece on the picture on the right. Thankfully the bulk of the piece was salvageable.

I also bought this cute little teapot.  I didn't think I'd get it clean enough to actually use it as intended, and I didn't.  It's a candle holder, and it lets out such a pretty, warm glow.

$2.42 less 25% off.

All scrubbed and ready to go

I figured I could use a thermos as well, and since it was priced pretty well, I grabbed it.   It was caked in grime.  A little bit of elbow grease, a generous amount of Dawn dishwashing liquid and it's almost as good as new. 

A bit scratchy, but clean and serviceable

I'm realizing how crappy these pictures are.  I desperately need a new camera and think I'm getting this one.  My new friend Nelly uses this camera, and it (or her) takes amazing shots.  I also read a great tutorial on blogging tools at Chez Larsson, and she suggests never using a flash.  I think I'll try that next time.