A Knitting Technique Called "Saki-ami"
Knitting is one of my hobbies, but in recent years, I haven't made anything.
There are a couple of reasons for this. First, wool costs money. And second, the things I made were often unfashionable, unusable, and not as good as the same item bought from a shop. As for my success rate, I’d estimate it to be around 30%. Then, this year I came across a different kind of knitting technique called, "Saki-Ami" while watching a TV program on handcrafts. The knitting process is the same, but the yarn is different. It’s made from cut up cloth. I was interested in it because I thought I could use it to transform old, worn-out things into something new. I had a lot of clothes that I didn't want to wear any more as well as a lot of fabric that my mother had collected over the years, and passed onto me.
So that it wouldn't matter if it failed, I chose some things that I didn't particularly care about, and tried making something. As soon as I started knitting, the cut up cloth underwent a transformation. All the dirt, stains and discolorations seem to disappear, and the end result wasn’t that bad. I loved doing it, and started to cut up lots of old clothes to make yarn. It was a little difficult to do, but I found the whole process somehow soothing. The biggest thing I've made so far is a rug more than a metre in diameter. Made of cotton, it's perfect for a nap in the sweaty season. Actually, I wanted to make it a little bigger, but I gave up because I’d run out of materials - Saki-Ami requires a surprising amount of cloth, and I couldn't bring myself to cut up anything that could still be used.
