Off Topic Thursday - gardening, running, decluttering & more

I'm not going to post Off Topic Thursday here anymore. I'm going to try to keep this blog strictly recycled wool/sewing related. I have another blog, On A Side Note, that I use to blog about other things i'm doing/interested in, so that will help me keep things separate. On that blog I talk about my garden (i'm always looking for advice on that!), running (again, i'm always looking for advice!), garage sale finds, and my current "hobby", decluttering, you name it! I'll have an accountability post each Wednesday for the decluttering, and one on Thursday for my running. I'll even post when there's a pig in my strawberry patch!

I ran a 5k... with lots of wool on!

I ran The Fox & the Turkey 2 weeks ago that was a 4 mile race (my first race!), and today I just finished the Snowflake Shuffle 5k! Even though this was almost a mile less, it was much harder. I ran it in 40 minutes. For those of you who think that's a bad time, most of the course was unplowed slush, I was pushing Jack (my 5 year old) in a stroller, and half the time it was uphill. I really had to push myself with this one! That last stretch was plowed & I felt like I was flying after all that struggling through the snow! Here I am crossing the finish line :)

My everyday hats have been too warm for jogging lately, so I decided to make one just for running out of a super super thin merino I had. I used the pattern from Tuesday's tutorial, but added some ribbing at the bottom, some tassels on top, and appliqued "3.1" (3.1 miles is a 5k) on it. I even made a reinforced pony tail hole in the back. It was absolutely perfect for today!

I was wearing my wool running pants as well. I was trying to see how many times I could wear them without having to wash them, and this was the 6th time i've worn them. They smell fresh as a daisy, but the experiment will end here for now. I've lost weight since I made them, so they are too loose... i'll have to felt them a bit to get them down a size. Can't do that with synthetics! It is fantastic to not have to wash them each time. My synthetic pants get stinky after one run and have to be washed each time. If you have 2 pairs of wool pants, run every other day, and you only have to wash them every 6 times you jog, you will only have to wash them every 24 days!

I also wore a merino wool running top that I was lucky enough to find in my size at the thrift store (no resweatering necessary!). I wore a synthetic jacket over that, but it caused me to overheat quickly & was in the stroller most of the race. The merino top kept me perfectly comfortable. I had my merino runner's mittens on, that I made, and they were perfect. I wish I would have had wool socks on, because that was the only place I felt cold. Next time for sure!

It's Tutorial Tuesday - recycled merino wool running pants

This one's for the joggers! First, star out with a really big merino sweater (I believe mine was a mens XL, and I wear a medium in workout pants, and a 10 in jeans), and lightly felt it, so that it's still stretchy, but won't unravel when you cut. Now, make the shorts in this tutorial, making the back end pieces slightly bigger than the front pieces if you are using compression shorts as your pattern, like I used for these pants (I didn't do this, wish I would have, but wasn't the end of the world), and making the leg part as long as your sweater will allow. Ok, you should have shorts now.



Now cut the arms off of your sweater, so the tops are straight across. These will be the bottom part of the legs.


Now take the legs and tuck them inside the bottom of the legs of the shorts, so when you look inside the "tube" you see no seam. Remember that your shorts should still be right sides out at this point.



Now sew 2 seams, 1/4 inch apart, all the way around.


Now you're done! This seam is on the outside, for comfort, and the second stitch around exaggerates the seam, so it ends up looking like shorts over pants, instead of just having a weird seam. I think that if you have a serger, you could serge the legs to the shorts, but since I don't have a serger, I don't know if that would work. If anyone serges the legs on, will you come back and let us know how that turned out?

Here I am in all my running gear. I went out running in this outfit the other day, when it was 40 degrees. Everywhere I had wool (my funky hat tied into a beanie, my runner's mittens, my pants), I was comfortable from start to finish. I had synthetics (my shirt & jacket), I ran hot and cold the whole time. That wasn't a surprise though, since wool is naturally insulating, breathable, and moisture wicking. The added bonus of using wool for running pants, is that you don't have wash them every time, like synthetics, because of their antibacterial properties. After I run, always before I shower, my clothes usually stink [I can't believe I just posted this on the internet], and they go straight into the hamper, but I turned my running pants inside out to air, and the next day they smelled fresh as a daisy!