recycled cashmere

Today I wound together strands of cashmere that I unraveled from some old sweaters into plying balls.  Not sure if I like the color - I might over-dye these with some Kool-aid after I've plied them on my wheel.

sweater unraveling

Today I unraveled another sweater.  This is a wool blend that I think should work well for socks.  In its current freshly unraveled state it is 2 plies very loosely spun together.   I will need to add twist before using it for socks - it will not be very durable as is.

a 50 % wool, 20% viscose, 15% nylon, 10% angora, %5 cashmere  Jeanne Pierre sweater ready to be unraveled 

the sweater disassembled 

mid-unravel

completely unraveled - 467 grams of "new" yarn

4-ply cashmere

Tonight I 4-plied some thread weight cashmere that I had unraveled from a moth eaten sweater.  The resulting yarn is about a sport weight.

dryer balls

Tonight I made some felted dryer balls.  Adding these (about 6 per load) to the dryer when drying a load of clothes is supposed to replace dryer sheets and decrease drying time.   There are many ways to make these,  below are the steps I followed to make mine.  I used a skein of feltable wool yarn with miscellaneous wool scraps that I saved from knitting projects, spinning and unraveling thrift store sweaters.  To felt the balls I just wash and dry them a few times with the rest of my laundry.  When they seem felted enough I simply stop washing them and only add them to the dryer.

my wool scrap pile 

wool yarn being wrapped around a wad of wool scraps

with more wrapping

yarn wrapped until scraps are no longer visible and then end secured by running it through the ball numerous times

balls ready to be felted

a previously made dryer ball ready to be put to work

greeting card beads

Using the idea for book beads from smallestforest.net I made some beads from old greeting cards.

my used greeting cards

shapes for the beads cut using a mini sizzix die-cutter

shapes folded, ready to be glued

the finished bead

a bead made with a slightly different shape die-cut

gourd-geous creations finished

 Finished up my gourds.  They became gourd-geous bug creatures.

Supplies:   dried & cleaned gourds, gesso, acrylic paint (I used Liquitex heavy body acrylic 'bright aqua green', 'brilliant yellow green' and 'naphthol red light'), paint brushes, plastic novelty eyes (like these), adhesive, floral stem wire and wire cutters.

 To make: coat gourd with gesso & let dry.  After gesso is dry coat gourd with 1 to 2 coats of acrylic paint and let dry.  Drill holes for eyes & glue in place with adhesive.  Drill 2 holes each for wings, hanging wire and legs.  Thread wire through holes for hanging wire and twist together.  I possible thread wire through for wings and legs and twist to form shape.   If wire won't thread through both holes, cut wires in half and shape then glue in place.

gourd-geous creations

dried gourds

 A few years ago some gourds volunteered to grow in my yard (most likely courtesy of the neighborhood birds).  I saved and dried them and they've been sitting around ever since.  Tonight I gave the gourds a coat of gesso and a base coat of acrylic paint.  The paint is drying slowly so this is going to be a multi-day project.

with a coat of gesso

with a base coat of acrylic paint

sweater surgery

sleeve before surgery

While I was in Boston my sister gave me back a sweater because it had excessively long sleeves.  Other than the super long (and flared) sleeves it was a cute sweater.  Tonight I got out my scissors and performed some minor sweater surgery.  I thought I would need to crochet or knit a new edge after the extra length was cut off.  However it looked fine with just a gentle straightening of the final knit row.

excess length cut off

after surgery

monopoly money butterflies

Some butterflies folded from monopoly money.  To make these I followed the directions for "candy wrapper butterflies" in the book 'Trash Origami' by Michael G. Lafosse and Richard L. Alexander.

wrapping tissue paper yarn

 Inspired by a pin of newspaper yarn I saw on Pinterest I decided to try spinning some tissue paper yarn.  Not having any newspapers in the house I went with used gift tissue paper wrapping (yeah I actually save old gift wrap).  I cut the paper into 1" strips and used a 2 1/4 oz top-whorl spindle.  I think a heavier spindle would have been better, but that was the heaviest I had.  To start the yarn I twisted a small bit and taped it to form a loop and slipped the loop over the spindle's hook.  When joining I found it worked best to fold the end of the new piece in the end of the old piece of paper.  The print on the newspaper made that yarn look a bit more interesting then what I ended up with.  The post for the newspaper yarn can be found at: http://greenupgrader.com/2138/handspun-recycled-newspaper-yarn/

dryer lint mâché 2

My finished dryer lint-mâché bowl  - I painted the inside of the bowl with copper "liquid metal" acrylic paint (made by Sargent Art).   Not sure if my photos are doing the bowl justice - it really looks nice in person.

Some other dryer lint mâché creations:  

A glass jar covered with the lint paste and painted the outside red and the edges of the rim with the copper liquid metal paint. 

Blown-out eggs covered with the lint paste, the one on the left is painted with copper liquid metal paint and the one on the right is unpainted.

dryer lint mâché

Recipe for dryer lint-mâché paste

Combine ½ cup flour and 2 cups cold water in a bowl, stir well to dissolve all of the flour.

Boil 2 cups of water in a sauce pan and add the flour and cold water mixture.

Bring to a boil again, stirring frequently.

Remove from heat and add 3 tablespoons of sugar.

Let cool. The paste will thicken as it cools.

To make a basic bowl:  Find a bowl to use as your mold - I used a medium sized mixing bowl.  Lightly spray the outside of bowl with cooking spray and then cover the outside of the bowl with plastic wrap.  Place the bowl, rim side down on a protected surface (this gets very messy).  Dip a piece of dryer lint into the paste, getting it moist but not soaking wet with the glue and spread it onto the bowl.  Continue adding paste dipped lint to the bowl, smoothing it out each time until the bowl is covered.  Place  the inverted bowl on a coffee can or something similar to raise it up.  Finish the rim now or wait until its dry and trim it then.  I don't plan on trimming mine so I "feathered" out the edges by gently pulling out the lint along the rim.  Set it aside to dry.  This seems to dry slower than paper mâché, I ended up putting mine outside in the sun to dry (luckily it is unseasonably warm and sunny here in Michigan right now).  When the outside is dry to the touch gently pull the bowl out and peel the plastic off of the lint bowl.  Let the inside finish drying.  I think I will give this a few more days to completely dry and then try painting it.

And a photo of my tulips that just opened up today because I couldn't resist adding it :) 

needle felted pincushions

needle felted pincushions

materials

Supplies:  felting needles, foam block, plastic caps (I used one from a mayonnaise jar and one from a peanut butter jar), and miscellaneous wool (scraps of yarn, colored fleece and /or roving).  The yarn scraps  are all the little pieces that get trimmed from my knitting projects,  bits from unraveling sweaters  and the scraps from felting projects.

scrap ball

 To make:

1. Take a wad of yarn scraps or other wool and wind a piece of yarn around to form into a ball, using the plastic lid to determine the size ball to make.

ball partially covered with wool

2. Wrap the ball with colored wool (this will be the background color for the pincushion).  With felting needles felt the wool ball down to fit into the plastic lid, shaping it into a half sphere.

wool felted and shaped to fit lid

3.  Using scraps or yarn and or colored wool fleece felt decorations lightly onto the surface of the pincushion.  I used a pen style tool,  using the needles by themselves works but be careful - it is very easy to get poked using just the needles.  Glue pincushion into the lid base - I used Scotch quick-dry adhesive and it seems to hold it pretty well.