Unravelled

Today I'm feeling a bit unravelled as our dd kept us up for half the night with her latest teething/cold/who-knows-what extravaganza. So what better way to spend the quiet time whilst she was napping this afternoon than by experimenting with unravelling something else?

I've been on a bit of a declutter kick since reading Miss Minimalist by Francine Jay a couple of weeks ago. If, like me, you'd understood minimalism to be a term applied to a relatively dull design concept (think white rooms with no furniture), then think again. Minimalism is, or can be, an all-encompassing way of life - for the eco-conscious, it also provides some useful guidelines, or timely reminders, for how to live life more lightly, without using unnecessary resources or falling prey to the twin powers of capitalism and consumerism. If you want to know more, I'd suggest you read the book (I, appropriately, bought the Kindle edition, to avoid adding another physical book to my existing collection).

One of my decluttering goals has been to minimalise my wardrobe down to a single closet and a single chest of drawers, rather than needing to bring out and pack away a summer/winter wardrobe each year. Having looked at the clothes I actually wear all the time, the clothes I'd lost under piles of unworn things and the clothes that just don't fit or flatter, I came away with 4 large carrier bags-full. 1 bag of clothes from the upper end of the high street, all in excellent condition (the perils of sales and impulse buying) to hopefully be sold on to our local clothing agency; 1 bag of clothes in completely tatty condition to be recycled; and 2 bags of clothes destined for the charity shop.

And it was whilst looking at, in particular, some of the perfectly serviceable men's woollen jumpers (shrunken hand-me-downs from WH) that it occurred to me to wonder if I shouldn't be thinking about salvaging some of this yarn to reuse in my own knitting projects, rather than forking out on virgin yarns every time. Top of the pile was an off-white, GAP over-sized cardigan, which was much-loved one particularly chilly summer, but washed and worn so often that it completely lost its shape. So this afternoon, I sat down with this particularly useful blog post, some scissors and the item in question to see how difficult it would be to unravel myself some yarn.

And the answer? Surprisingly easy. Although also, surprisingly messy! Still, one fair-sized ball of yarn just from unravelling one sleeve is pretty good work for a sleep-deprived mummy on a Sunday afternoon!