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macy@macyagilliam · Aug 20, 2026

I spent 4 months and $2000 making myself a sweater from scratch, starting with shearing a sheep 🧵

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Summary

Someone spent 4 months and $2000 hand-making a sweater from scratch in NYC, starting with shearing a sheep at Queens County Farm Museum, then washing, spinning, dyeing with cochineal beetles, and knitting the wool into a finished garment over 90 hours of work.

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  1. #1

    I spent 4 months and $2000 making myself a sweater from scratch, starting with shearing a sheep 🧵

  2. #2

    I got all my wool from the last working farm in NYC, the Queens County Farm Museum. My sweater must be among a veryyyy small number in the world that are 100% sourced and made in NYC

  3. #3

    I spent 18 hours and $174 to wash and brush all of the wool to get it ready for spinning

  4. #4

    spinning took 24 hours, I did it all at Loop of the Loom in Brooklyn, I highly recommend all of their classes I always loved putting my wool in my citibike basket to get over there lol

  5. #5

    dyeing took 9 hours and cost the most for supplies ($235) bc I needed special kitchen supplies that would be just for this and aren't food safe anymore I dyed my yarn with cochineal beetles, which are the only FDA approved food and cosmetic dye. you've definitely eaten it before, they use it in nerds, yoplait yogurt, the starbucks pink drink for awhile. yum!

  6. #6

    knitting took 38 hours🙃🙃🙃 and was made more difficult by my poor dye skills which made the yarn bleed dye all over my hands the whole time

  7. #7

    this was one of the most ridiculous and rewarding projects ive ever done. it's difficult to capture the full fun and chaos of 90 hours of work in a thread, would highly recommend watching the full video:)

  8. #8

    also, video link here youtu.be/L7QMgbMlaek?si…