Hankering for Yarn

What to do with those little scraps of yarn?

by Chloe on May 25th, 2006

I collect yarn because it’s beautiful, or unusual, or because I know it will work for a particular project. But what happens after you’ve made something and you have little pieces of yarn left over? I hate to throw anything away and so needed to come up with a creative way to use those nummy little bits of yarn.

I’m also an art quilter and a mixed media artist, so worked out a way use those little scraps to make free-motion felt.
I usually start with a piece of fabric that has heavyweight interfacing fused to the back. You can also use a heavyweight water-soluble stabilizer as well, if you want a lacier finished project. I’ve used a 100% cotton batik print for this project.

I’ve selected a blend of yarns and have pulled them apart to show the detail a little better:

There’s mohair, metallic yarns and a couple different types of novelty yarn in here. The next step is to spread them over the fabric until you like the arrangement. You can also add scraps of fabric, plastic, silk or roving - be creative! As long as it can go through a sewing machine and can be washed - you can use it.

Like how it looks? Good! We now have to pin a lightweight water-soluble stablizer to the top of the fabric/yarn sandwich.

It’s better to use too many pins than too few and have yarn falling out! Tomorrow we stitch, and stitch & stitch!

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POSTED IN: Creativity, Techniques & Stitches