Monday, September 29, 2008

Making "Yarn"

As I was perusing Ravelry.com, I saw an interesting "rag" bag that I thought was kinda nifty. It involved using scrap fabric as yarn.

I have an insane amount of scrap fabric from all my sewing, so I started making "yarn".

It was relatively easy although it takes a bit of time. There's two methods:
1) a quasi- continuous bias method using a tube of fabric. This works for a square-ish piece of fabric that is at least 4-5 inches big.
-- The square fabric is sewn into a tube. Turn right-side out
-- Cut 1/2" squares, stopping about 1" from the seam
-- Cut one of the end "strips" at an angle
-- Cut the rest of the strips diagonally across the seam.
This results in a somewhat continuous strip of fabric.

2) cut out strips for long, skinny pieces of fabric. Cut them either 1-2" depending on the size, then cut those in half until you get 1/2" pieces.

Pieces of "yarn" are strung together by making slits at the end of each piece, then using those to tie / knot the pieces to each other.

From the left over scraps of a duster, I managed to get about 4 yards of yarn. Most of the straps were long skinny pieces (thanks to long pattern panels), but the quasi-continuous method worked well on small square pieces as well.

I also tackled a few pieces from the ren faire outfits I made, and also managed about 2-3 yards of "yarn" from the goldenrod fabric.

Since my scrap bin is somewhat full, it'll take me a bit of time to go through, but it'll be something I'll do while watching videos or somesuch....or if I find myself with time to spare

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