Story of a Sweater — In Collaboration with Share a Square

Here's something all our grandmothers did: whenever someone outgrew — or just stopped wearing — a knitted piece of clothing (especially sweaters), it was unravelled and made into a new sweater. This cycle continued until the yarn was too worn out to reuse.

Grandparents are experts at being less wasteful because they grew up in a time when they had to maximise the utility of what they had at hand; it was a way of life for them. 

I'd love to know about the things your grandparents did to use things to the max — share them with me in the comments!

Let me tell you a bit about my naani (maternal grandmother). She's an expert in all things yarn. She even made all my mother's clothes. Whenever a sweater was outgrown, she unravelled it, processed the yarn to straighten it out (you'll find out how in a bit) and it was ready to knit again.

Sweaters aren't worn as often as regular clothes. Reusing yarn from old woollens over and over again is zero waste to boot.

This post is in collaboration with Share a Square. It is a Bangalore-based organisation founded by my friends, Edha Singh and Sahana Athreya, in 2020.  They crowdsource knit, crocheted or stitched squares of side length 6 inches/15 cm, which are pieced together to make ponchos and baby blankets for orphanages. Thus they serve the dual purpose of helping the needy and popularising these dying handicrafts among the younger generation. I'm linking their socials at the end of the article.

I'm grateful to have been associated with them since their early days. I used to be an avid crocheter back in the day. Chancing upon SAS made me pick up the hook again after years. I had a bunch of odd lengths of yarn and small swatches from when I first started learning to crochet, and I had a whale of a time whipping up 6-inch squares from those. The repetitive action of crochet is therapeutic, and it's such a relief to finish up leftover yarn that can't be used in any other knitting/crochet project — all knitters and crocheters would wholeheartedly agree with me here.

I really loved fashioning granny squares from those crocheted swatches and miscellaneous yardages — they'd been lying around for ages, and being the hoarder that I am, I wasn't ready to part with them. 

A few months down the line, I took it up a notch. I had a godforsaken trench coat sitting in my wardrobe for years. Earlier I wasn't too sure about what to do with it; I was iffy about donating it because I was quite certain that nobody would wear it. Then I had an idea — this bulky coat has enough yarn for one blanket, so why not see if I can unravel it and whip one up? It took me a while to do so, but it sure was worth it.

The trench coat gave me enough yarn for one baby blanket. After I was through with it, I grabbed one of my baby sweaters that didn't have much sentimental value and dismantled that as well. It gave me just about enough squares for one blanket.

I was taken aback by the number of squares that came out of a baby-sized sweater 

I was a co-writer on the SAS blog for the article 'Share Your squares, Sustainably' (https://shareasquare.wixsite.com/website/post/share-your-squares-sustainably), wherein we listed out some alternative/jugaadu methods to make the signature squares. One of them was unravelling ill-fitting woollens and using them for squares, and I'm writing about that in this post in detail. The good thing about blankets is that they're never outgrown, and can be cherished for years to come.

Here's how I unravelled that trench coat. Apart from the garment you wish to unravel, you'll also need to keep a pair of scissors, a stitch remover (if you have it) and knitting needles/crochet hooks in handy.

Step 1: Taking apart the work

This is usually the trickiest bit, and you're more likely to have to contend with this if you're taking apart a machine-knit item. The trench coat I was dealing with was machine-made, and it had many parts knit separately and then joined by sewing them together (in my case, with chain stitches).

I pulled the coat apart at the seams to search for such stitches. I do not have great pictures of the whole process because it didn't occur to me until well into the project, but if y'all give this tutorial a go, send me pictures of the process. I'd be more than glad to feature them here. 

As you can see here, the collar, the front pieces and the pockets are knit separately and fastened together by stitching.

Step 2: Unravelling the work  

This is the most satisfying step in my opinion. What you need to do is to look for the tail end of the yarn. It can be a bit of a challenge because it's neatly tucked in somewhere, especially in the case of machine-knit clothing. Once you find it, you need only give it a tug and the yarn will unravel easily. However, you might need to meddle around with it and undo some knots before it starts to unravel, depending on how the work was finished — just try not to cut it. If the yarn doesn't unravel even after the detangling step, don't fret. The ending can be found on the other end of the work. Locate it, undo the finishing knots and yank away to glory.

Some items might have been made by working into the strands of yarn to make them more durable, which might make it tough to unravel them as smoothly. I'm yet to come across that, but if any of you have, tell me about it and I'll write it here.

As I went on unravelling the coat, I had to deal with the buttonholes, which were made by cutting slits in the front piece after it was done, and reinforcing the slits using the buttonhole stitch. I simply removed the stitches as I arrived at each buttonhole, and continued to unravel. I was left with a few discontinuous strands of yarn, which I just tied together into a single long strand. 

Step 3: Straightening out the yarn (optional)

After unravelling, you're left with a pile of yarn that is too wavy to work with. It's really easy to straighten it out. Start by winding the yarn around something hard,  like a clipboard or a hardbound book. 

Then gently remove those large loops from the clipboard. Dunk them in water and let them drip dry (do not wring out the water). The water will run down the yarn loops and will straighten them out. Once dry, your yarn will be less wavy and good enough to work with.

I skipped this step because I was only making granny squares, and the kinky yarn wasn't an impediment there. In fact, I ditched the clipboard after a while. I only separated the pieces as in step 1, and worked on the square directly, unravelling as I went along, like so...

Not only did I have enough yarn to make the requisite number of squares for a full blanket, but there was also enough to join them to make a blanket.

The blanket as received by SAS. It didn't look too neat, because I'm not that great with the hook. I think they neatened up the edges and added the lining on receiving it.

Here's a quick video tutorial to show you how to unravel a machine-knit item. It had to be broken into 2 parts.

Part 1:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Share a Square (@share.a.square)

Part 2:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Share a Square (@share.a.square)

Here are the links to Share A Square's socials:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Share-a-square-112500553768161/
• Instagram: @share.a.square
• Website: https://shareasquare.wixsite.com/
• Email: shareasquareblore@gmail.com

Y'all should contribute squares too! They have collection centres in several cities in India, and they're branching out worldwide as well — they already have chapters in Texas and Cyprus. The collection centres are listed on their website and their social media pages. If your city doesn't have a collection centre or chapter, you can mail your squares to any of the addresses listed on their socials (they'll be happy to help you with the logistics), or why not get in touch with them and start one yourself?

Do let me know if you try out this tutorial, and tell me all about it in the comments. Any struggles, your stories and anecdotes — I can't wait to hear them.

Signing off with a li'l extra — I was featured on Share a Square's 'Saturday Knit Live', in conversation with Edha about sustainability and gender stereotypes in knitting and crocheting.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Share a Square (@share.a.square)