Sustainable knitting and a little bit of silliness...

I am a keen recycler and hate to throw away anything useful.  I had a cheap old pair of gloves that were shapeless and worn out.  I know they were cheap because I never pay very much for anything!  I noticed they were badly made and were already unravelling.  That gave me an idea.  

I continued the unravelling.  The first photo shows how much wool there was in just one cuff.  This was the most difficult part to unravel because it had a thin elastic knitted in with the wool.  

The second photo shows what I had after unravelling the first glove.  By now I was fascinated to see how the glove had been made.  The knitted-in elastic stopped after the cuff and unravelling it became very easy, fast and thoroughly satisfying.  The biggest ball of wool came from the cuff, the lower palm and the thumb.  Then the next ball of wool came from the upper palm and the little finger.  The three remaining fingers each produced their own little ball of wool.

The third photo shows what I now have after unravelling both gloves.  This is a dark grey 2 ply wool.  It is still in a good condition and I have put it away with my other 2 ply wool which is mainly pink and white.  I think, for hand knitting, 2 ply wool is completely useless.  But knitted together it quickly makes a 4 ply yarn that can be used for all sorts of things. 

That project was my little bit of silliness over Christmas.  It was also a very welcome bit of light relief from my current project of knitting a very complicated Aran jumper.