Tin Can Knits

It’s time for that rarest of occurrences: A TCK SALE!

If you’ve been around awhile, you know this doesn’t happen often… our last sale was four years ago!

We’ve always focused on bringing you excellent value with trusted and clear pattern writing, delicious photography, helpful tutorials, baby-to-big sizing, and responsive support. So what could be better than that? A buy-one-get-one-free sale!

Buy One Get One Free sale details

• The BOGO sale runs from now until February 28, 2021, midnight PST, so pick your faves today!
• To get one eBook or pattern free, simply add two eBooks or patterns to your cart before checking out on our website or Ravelry. There are no limitations – you can purchase more than one pair! The least expensive item(s) will be free.
• All eBooks and patterns published by Tin Can Knits are included in the sale. Print books, the Heart on my Sleeve eBook, Sword Fern, Crossed Cardigan, and Elwha are not included in the sale.
• If you buy on our website, there is a convenient button to add the pattern to your Ravelry.com library, if desired.

What’s the best deal?

EBOOKS! Yes, all of our ebooks are included in the sale, and BOGO makes them an amazing deal. Say you’ve been considering Strange Brew and Mad Colour… now you can get both eBooks – all 30 patterns – for just $22 USD + tax!

A few of your faves

The knitters have spoken! These are TCK’s most popular designs: Beloved bonnet, Love Note sweater, Strange Brew sweater, Antler cardigan, Gramps cardigan, Bounce blanket, Snap hat, Dog Star sweater, and Vivid blanket.

Head over to the new TCK website and pick up YOUR faves today!

Did you read our tutorial How to Recycle Yarn from Second-hand Sweaters? Recycling yarn is essentially just unpicking second-hand sweaters and then pulling and pulling, until you’ve unravelled the fabric back into yarn. This is something I did A LOT of when I first began my love affair with knitting. If you’d like to learn how to recycle yarn step-by-step, be sure to check out the tutorial!

Once you’ve got some lovely recycled yarn on hand, what’s next? Let’s talk about knitting with the results! Before you can choose a project, you’ll need to figure out:

1. What gauge the recycled yarn will knit to.
2. Approximately how much yardage you have.
3. What the yarn is made of.

What gauge will the recycled yarn knit to?

First, there’s the question of what gauge you can achieve with the yarn you’ve created. When working with recycled yarn from a second-hand jumper, you won’t have a ball band to tell you what the yarn is made of, its yardage, or the suggested gauge and needle size. You’ll have to figure these things out yourself.

The ‘construction’ of recycled yarn may be a little different from what you’re accustomed to. For example, this yarn I recycled is actually composed of six strands knit. It was not plied – it was simply knit with the six strands at once. Now it appears to hold together as a single strand, due to the light felting that occurred with wear and processing. But that’s no problem; it knit up just fine!

Measure gauge from the garment before recycling it back to yarn

A quick way to guess what gauge you’ll knit is by measuring the gauge of the original garment you unravelled (before you take it to pieces!). Although the machine-knit fabric of the garment you’re recycling may be a bit more dense than the fabric you want to create, this can provide a sensible starting spot.

Measure WPI – wraps per inch – to assess yarn weight

I like to do a quick wraps per inch (WPI) test on recycled yarn before I begin working with it. You can do this by wrapping the yarn around a ruler and counting how many wraps fit into one inch. Then you can check Ravelry’s WPI gauge table to find the weight equivalent of your WPI. Alternatively, you might find it more effective to compare your recycled yarn to a commercial yarn that you have on hand to see if it has more, less, or the same WPI.

Knit gauge swatches to determine gauge

The most accurate way to determine gauge is to knit one or more gauge swatches on different needle sizes. These swatches will tell you precisely what gauge your recycled yarn knits to, and as a bonus, they’ll reveal the quality of the resulting fabric. And if you’re planning to knit something that depends on gauge for fit, you’ll definitely need to swatch.

How much yardage do you have? 

There’s nothing more frustrating than beginning a project and then discovering near the end that you don’t have enough yarn to finish it. Since recycled yarns don’t come with a ball band to tell you the exact yardage, you’ll need to estimate it. This may seem daunting, but I have a few suggestions to help you figure it out.

Calculate yardage by measuring the skein and counting loops

By measuring how long the loop of a skein is (say, 24″ around) and counting the number of strands you have in your skein (say there are 120 loops), you can multiply the two numbers to get the length of yarn in the skein: 120 loops x 24″ = 2880″ total. To convert inches to yards, divide by 36 (because there are 36″ in one yard). For our example, 2880″ / 36″ = 80 yards.

Extrapolate using weight

If you’ve calculated the length of a single skein by weighing it, you can work out how much you have total in the lot of recycled yarn. (You will need a kitchen scale for this.) Say you know that a skein measures 80 yds, and it weighs 35 g; you can divide the length / weight. In this case, 80 yds / 35 g = 2.286 yards in a single gram of the yarn. By getting the total weight of the recycled yarn (let’s say it’s 250g), you can calculate the total yardage by multiplying total weight x yards per gram, or 250 x 2.286 = 571 yds.

It’s best to remember that all of the above is still somewhat approximate, so take your own calculations with a grain of salt!

Make a smaller project

If you’re still uncertain about yardage, stick with smaller projects like socks, hats, and other accessories. Smaller sized sweaters are also good choices. If you have recycled yarn from a men’s size L jumper, you can probably use the results to make a child’s sweater or women’s size S, as long as the nature of the stitch pattern doesn’t require vastly different amounts of yarn.

Combine yarns in colourwork or striped projects

When you aren’t certain whether a lot of yarn will be enough to complete an entire blanket, shawl, or sweater, you can combine two lots – and stripes are so much fun to knit!

If you’re working with lighter-weight recycled yarns, holding two different strands together as one to make up to a heavier weight yarn could be a good solution. And we have a tutorial on how to knit with two or more yarns held together to create marled fabric that just might inspire you!

What is the recycled yarn made of? 

When recycling yarn, I like to take note of the fibre content listed on the garment tag – that way I know what I’m working with. If the garment has no tag, you’ll have to take your best guess, but you can use your senses to come to a reasonable conclusion. If it smells sheepy when you wet it, it’s probably got some sheep’s wool in it. If it smells a little like a dead bug, it’s probably got some silk content. If it melts when you burn it, you’ve got some plastic in there. Cotton usually feels pretty cottony and doesn’t have any stretch to it. But, of course, the most reliable way to know is to look at the garment tag!

What will you knit?! Decisions, decisions! 

You can make anything from recycled yarn that you can make from new yarn. I suggest selecting a pattern based on the the yarn itself, considering its fibre content and its properties – whether it’s scratchy or soft, elastic and springy (wool and blends), or ropey and smooth without any stretch (cotton or linen).

With this beautiful worsted/aran weight recycled yarn, I decided to knit something simple, selected from among our free patterns. The free Antler toque is a classic, and it makes a great first or second cable project. For an even SIMPLER first cable project, we suggest the free Northward hat pattern.

Have you tried your hand at knitting with recycled yarn? Let us know what has your experience been like!

~ Emily

As designers, Alexa and I are lucky enough to knit with pretty much whatever tickles our fancy. We often work in luxury yarns. And while we adore shopping for shiny new yarns, we know from experience that this is not what knitting is about. Of all the things our shared craft is about, for knitters across time and place, it is not about shine.

When I first fell head-over-heels in love with knitting, and started a blog about it over 10 years ago, I had just finished university. I didn’t yet have a job and thus had relatively little cash on hand for hobbies. Back then, I looked at the price of new yarns in knit shops, and I honestly didn’t understand how anyone could afford it. What I did have then, in my pre-mommy days, was a ton of time. So, to make my new hobby more wallet friendly, I learned how to recycle second-hand sweaters.

I would carefully unravel thrifted garments back into yarn, which I would then knit into new items. For $5-$10, I could find a wool jumper, and with a few hours of effort, have a sweater quantity of yarn. I also experimented with simple dying techniques and ended up with a selection of my own hand-dyed yarns!

It’s useful for me to remember those days. Back then, knitting with recycled yarn or more affordable acrylic yarn was no less enticing, fascinating, pleasurable, and joyful than it is now that I knit with more expensive materials. In some ways, it was even MORE exciting because everything about knitting was still so new. Alexa and I both loved it then, when we worked with what we could access and afford. And we still love it now, no matter what kind of yarn is on our needles.

Shopping for a garment to unravel

If you’d like to try recycling yarn for yourself, I have a few tips to share, starting with how to find the right second-hand sweater.

• Construction: It’s critical that the sweater pieces have been KNIT to shape, rather than made with knitted fabric that was CUT to shape.
• Crochet Chain Seams: If the seams look like they’ve been made by a serger (like the seams inside a T-shirt), steer clear. Look for seams that are easy to unpick; they will look like a little column of Vs, as you can see in the image below.
• Fibre Content: Check the label to see the fibre content of the sweater; I always sought wool and wool blends.
• Weight: It’s best to look for heavier/chunkier sweaters because they will unravel into yarn that’s a suitable gauge for use in hand-knitting patterns. That said, it is possible to unravel finer-gauge sweaters and then hold several strands of yarn together when knitting.
• Pullovers: Often, when commercially made cardigans have button bands, the yarn is cut where the buttonholes are made, so you’ll end up having several shorter bits of yarn from unravelling a cardigan. This can be fine if you’re willing to spit-splice often or weave in many ends, but it’s better if you don’t have to!
• Felting: Is it felted? If the fabric is felted together, it won’t unravel, so look for fabric that shows spaces and rows when stretched (horizontally and vertically). This makes it more likely that you’ll be able to unravel it successfully.

How to disassemble and unravel a garment

Sweaters tend to be seamed last at the body sides and underarms, so that’s a good place to begin unpicking. If you can get ahold of the right end of the crochet chain that seams the sides, you can often just pull, and the majority of the seam will ‘unzip’ like magic. After you’ve taken apart the sides and underarm seams, you can unpick the sleeves from the yoke.

You may need to cut off the shaped part at the front neckline/back, before unravelling downwards, depending on how the neckline was worked in the commercial sweater. You will find most jumpers have been knit from the bottom (hem, cuffs) upward, which means when unravelling them, you must unravel from the top of the piece (shoulder, neckline) and work downwards. They must be unravelled in the opposite direction from which they were knit.

Once you’ve got a good piece, cut off the top edge, find an end, and start pulling. The yarn can be a bit sticky at the ends of rows, so take it slowly to begin – and expect to spend some time on the process. If there are parts of the fabric where the wool is felted, you may need to cut off a few rows before it will continue to unravel. Spit-splicing is your friend here if you’re working with wool yarns. Otherwise, get comfortable with having many yarn ends to weave in.

I always unpick my yarn into a pile of ‘yarn spaghetti’ in a big paper or plastic bag. As long as no kids or pets get at it, you’ll be able to pull it back up out of the bag without tangling on the next step.

How to prepare recycled yarn for knitting

• Once the yarn is unraveled, wind it around something to form it into skeins. Tie it in a few places, so it doesn’t get tangled when you wash or dye it.
• If you plan to over-dye your recycled yarn, soak and rinse it first, and then pop it into the dye pot to give it a new life!
• For recycled yarns you want to use as-is, simply give them a gentle wash with some shampoo, allowing them plenty of time to soak. Then hang them to drip dry, perhaps with a little weight hanging off the bottom of the skein to remove some of the kinkiness.
• After dyeing or drying, wind up the yarns into balls for use. If you don’t have a ball-winder and swift, follow our tutorial on how to hand-wind a centre-pull ball of yarn. You can work with these yarns held singly or by holding two or more strands together to achieve a heavier gauge.
• With recycled yarns, it’s necessary to do more swatching, as there’s no ball band to tell you which needles to choose.

My best find!

My best-find-ever for recycling yarn was a large sweater in aran-weight 100% cashmere. I unraveled it and over-dyed the yarn from baby blue to this knockout cobalt colour. I then knit up a new sweater using the February Lady Sweater pattern, an adult design inspired by Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Baby Sweater on Two Needles.

A couple of other really lovely projects I knit with recycled yarns were a Laminaria shawl, and a Pi blanket.

Buying second-hand in the age of fast fashion

It’s important to recognize that my ability to go thrifting for sweaters made from luxury fibres is, at least in part, a symptom of fast fashion, which is a problematic system for many reasons. When I find cashmere sweaters sold second hand, I know there’s a whole industry behind them – one that’s overwhelmingly damaging to workers’ lives and the environment, producing masses of garments for unsustainably low dollar values. When the cost of new garments is low for wealthy Westerners, dropping bags of ‘old’ clothes at a second-hand shop before going to buy the next season’s wardrobe becomes commonplace.

There’s also an issue with the growing trend of buying second-hand clothing. When thrift shops are frequented by middle class and affluent customers, prices can rise beyond what’s affordable for those with less cash. Those who truly need to shop for low cost clothing can find themselves priced out of the market.

That said, within the system we have now, reusing fibres – and thus saving them from a landfill where they would otherwise end up – still seems to me to be a good thing. And if new yarn isn’t in the budget, recycling thrifted sweaters is one way into knitting with an affordable price tag.

If you’re curious about sustainable and ethical fashion, the problems with fast fashion, how racism intersects with these issues, and how to shop for alternatives, Alexa and I LOVE the personal style and critical thoughts of Aja Barber. Aja delivers both pearly wisdom (seasoned with a generous dash of style inspiration) to our inbox via her Patreon. She also can also be found on Instagram.

Be sure to comment if you have any tips for making knitting more affordable, ethical, and sustainable. We’d love to hear from you!

~ Emily

Choosing yarn for a sweater can be a big decision. You may be working with this yarn for a hundred hours or more – and wearing the sweater you make even longer. Sweaters are usually the largest items knitters make, and the cost for that amount of yarn can be high. So how do you choose a yarn that’s right for you?

The most important thing

Some folks will tell you that you have to choose a certain type of yarn for sweaters. They will tell you it has to be hard-wearing yarn, that is has to be exactly the yarn suggested in the pattern, or that it must match the colours you already have in your wardrobe. But here at Tin Can Knits, we are not purists. For us, the most important thing about a sweater yarn is that YOU love it. What good is knitting a whole sweater in a yarn you aren’t thrilled-to-death about? Are you suddenly going to become enamoured with a yarn you find scratchy or dull once it’s knit into a whole sweater? I doubt it. I personally like to wear black quite a bit, but I definitely don’t want to knit a whole black sweater! So forget what you think you SHOULD use. Go out and find a sweater yarn that is perfect for YOU.

It’s all about pros and cons

Not all yarns are great for sweater knitting. A single-ply, un-spun yarn, for example, will likely end up a pilly mess after only a few wears. There are lots of different types of yarn out there, though, and they each have their pros and cons. We stand confidently behind the yarns we use for our pattern samples, but we know they aren’t always available or accessible to everyone – nor are they necessarily what you might choose for your own sweater.

And just because WE have used a certain type of yarn for a particular sweater, it doesn’t mean that is the ONLY type of yarn that will work. A sweater knit in a single ply and a plied yarn might look different, but it certainly doesn’t mean one is definitively better than the other. It comes down to what YOU prefer for YOUR sweater. Customizing things to suit our tastes is what knitters do, after all! Keeping that in mind, here are some factors to consider when choosing a sweater yarn.

Construction or ply

What is a ply? A ply is a strand of fibre that makes up a yarn. A single-ply yarn is just one twisted piece of fibre. A plied yarn is composed of two or more of those plies twisted together. A two-ply yarn is made up of two single strands. A three-ply yarn is made up of three single strands and so forth. Take a look at a few of the yarns you have on hand and see if you can pull apart the plies to count them.

If you choose a single-ply yarn for your sweater, it will be oh-so soft and cozy, BUT it won’t be as hard-wearing as one made with a plied yarn. Single-ply yarns also tend to pill more than plied yarns. There are varying degrees of twist in a yarn as well. One that has a lot of twist will last longer, but it generally won’t be as soft as compared to a softer-spun yarn of the same fibre.

Fibre

There are just so many types of yarns out there these days! You can find yarns made from any number of animal fibres and plant-based fibres, as well as synthetics. There are yarns made from sheep’s wool, alpaca, and yak. There are silk yarns, cotton yarns, and linen yarns. You can also find yarns that are a mix of these things. So which one is right for your sweater?

Emily and I tend to use animal fibres in our sweater knits. Animal fibres have what is called ‘memory’, which means they tend to stay where you put them. They block easily and keep their shape. However, there are exceptions to this. For example, alpaca tends to drape more and holds its shape differently than sheep’s wool. Wool has a few magical properties that I like to take advantage of – like it stays warm when wet and is naturally odour resistant.

Plant fibres, like cotton or linen, tend to keep you cooler. If you live in a warmer climate, they might be the way to go. Plant fibres do not have memory, so they don’t hold their shape the same way that animal fibres do. This can be both a pro and a con. The drape of a linen, for example, can make for a really beautiful top. I’ve had the most success using patterns that are specifically designed for these types of fibres.

Synthetic fibres are the most cost effective when it comes to sweaters. They are also easy to care for; sometimes they can even go in the dryer! You can also often find yarns that are a mix of animal fibres and synthetics, which can strike a great balance.

Care

Another consideration when choosing a sweater yarn is how you will care for your garment. I hand wash all of my hand knit sweaters and my kiddos’ sweaters, too. This isn’t practical for everyone, though, so you might opt for a yarn that is machine washable, like a superwash wool or a synthetic. This is also something to think about if you are doing any gift knitting. In my experience, non-knitters are not always well versed in knitwear care, so keep that in mind.

The swatch test

So you have your chosen yarn. You have considered longevity, drape, softness, and care, and you have chosen the one YOU love. You are now ready to swatch! Swatching is generally recommended, but I think it is the most important step when preparing to knit a sweater – so don’t skimp on the swatch! Knit a nice big one! We have some thoughts on swatching basics here, the cowl swatch here, and swatching for colourwork here. Give yourself all the information you need before starting your sweater!

Swatching will let you know if you are getting the recommended pattern gauge, and maybe more importantly, if you actually like the fabric at that gauge. Is the fabric is too open or too dense for your liking? Will you want to wear a whole sweater in this colour after all? If you are knitting a cabled sweater, do the cables ‘pop’ the way you want them to? If you are knitting colourwork, do the colours all work together the way you had hoped? Or do you need to add a brighter yellow? Or more contrast? (We have a whole post on choosing yarns for colourwork here.) Your swatch will give you a pretty good idea if your chosen yarn is right for your sweater project.

While swatching is important, it is wise to remember that swatches can’t tell you EVERYTHING. A swatch doesn’t have the weight of a whole sweater hanging from it, so it can be a bit more difficult to assess the drape of a fabric. A swatch doesn’t have seams, and it rarely encompasses all of the stitch patterns in a sweater. BUT it is still the best tool we have to test whether or not the chosen yarn will work the way we want it to.

The Hat Swatch

Hats are perfect for swatching, so we knit a whole lotta of swatch hats! For instance, when contemplating the colour palette for the Embers sweater, we first tried several different colour combos in the Embers hat. Yarns in this array include The Farmer’s Daughter Fibers Soka’pii, a single-ply fingering weight; Emily’s handspun, a plied sport weight; and Jamieson & Smith Two-Ply Jumper Weight, a plied wool fingering weight yarn.

What’s next?

You have a yarn you love. You have pinpointed the perfect colour, and you have the right mix of hard-wearing and soft-against-the-skin. Your swatch has told you that the fabric is just right for your liking. Now it’s time to cast on and knit your sweater!

If you are embarking on your very first sweater, or could use some pointers, check out all our sweater knitting tutorials here.

What is your favourite sweater yarn? Let us know in the comments!

~Alexa