I am the Queen of Clearance. I am always drawn to the racks or bins that say reduced, clearance, super sale, or something like that. I think that this is a habit from my early years when, if I wanted something new, I needed to search out the sales to find something I could afford. It is this habit that brought about my topic for today.
I was in a discount store shopping for designer jeans when I stopped to look at the clearance sweater rack. I do love sweaters. I found this pretty cotton cable knit that really appealed to me as a great top for a cooler spring day or summer evening. I checked the tag and it was $3.00! My heart rate sped up a little. It was my size! It was meant to be mine and into the buggy it went.
I always try clothes on before buying and, much to my disappointment, my beautiful bargain sweater was a perfect fit except (and this is the bad part) the sleeves were so long and narrow as to be laughable. I had a look at the inside of the sweater as I still was in love with the colour and texture of the knit and found that it was not a cut and sew so I could take it apart. The things we do for love!
Long story short, the sweater went to the cashier and home with me. I tried to block the sleeves wider and shorter by washing the sweater and stretching them out before laying it out to dry. No dice, the sleeves were just as long and skinny as ever when it was dry so I went to Plan B.
I carefully unpicked the seam where the sleeves fit into the armhole and found the end of the cast off sleeve top. Into my trusty yarn winder the end went and after a few minutes I had a cake of yarn instead of a sleeve. Sleeve number two dissolved into a cake just as quickly.
I am lucky to have a standard gauge knitting machine as I didn’t want to spend hours knitting on small gauge needles for an experiment that may or may not work. I cast on sleeve one and went with a plain stockinette as I knew that there was no way that I could replicate the original stitch pattern. I opted for elbow length sleeves so that the difference in design would not be too noticeable and left the cast on edge to roll as, again, I couldn’t match the ribbing.
I sewed up the sleeve seam and set the first sleeve into the armhole. It worked and, with a little blocking, will look great! I am so delighted that I could rescue a really pretty sweater with a serious design flaw and add to my wardrobe at the same time. The $3.00 price tag was nothing to sneeze at either for the Queen of Clearance.