This week, I fell down a new to me rabbit hole on YouTube. I happened upon a couple of interesting videos about weaving rugs from unwanted garments, that were really useful and inspirational. Both videos were on the same channel called Lena Brit Artist and in them she shows how she made a genius large weaving loom using an IKEA clothes hanging rail and from this she wove two very beautiful rugs, one made from unwanted clothing and the other from unwanted denim jeans.
The process she used to create the yarn for weaving inspired me to dig out some fabric yarn that I'd cut up maybe 10 years ago from old black cotton jersey t-shirts. I'd tried knitting them into a small rug or table mat, but had then lost one of the needles, so couldn't continue with it. I ended up unravelling the whole thing and winding it into a ball for later use, which of course never happened. Fast forward 10 years to today.
Having seen how Lena stitched the fabric strips together using a zig zag stitch, this inspired me to get out the ball of yarn. I had attached the strips by just knotting them together which left big knots which stuck out of the knitting. I decided to go back and try to unpick the knots and re-attach the fabric strips by stitching them together. It took a while to do, but eventually I made a new neater ball of yarn from the original one. I also ended up trimming the strips in places too, as where I'd snaked them to create one long piece of yarn from a t-shirt, there were extra bits of fabric where I'd turned the corner, so these got trimmed off to create a smooth ball of yarn. The offcuts were then chopped up to go into my bags of tiny scraps to use for stuffing. Nothing goes to waste.
Here's the big ball of yarn once it was stitched together and rewound. It's all ready to knit into something useful. I'll keep you posted with regard to what I make from it.
In the middle of carrying out this task, I headed off to a class at the gym. On the way home, I dropped into my local RSPCA shop, as I like to pay them an occasional visit and they often have interesting craft items for sale and today was no different.
I bought this set of bag bases for crochet or knitting, which I will try to make use of. LB may also be able to use one or two for crochet projects. They cost £5 for 7 bases in different shapes and colours and they all have little metal feet on them. I'll just see what I can do with them.
I also bought a ball of purple jute string for £1, which might come in useful when I eventually do attempt some weaving on this small children's loom I bought a few years ago from our local table top sale. I am yet to use it, but I finally removed the original strings on it ready to re-string it and do some actual weaving. I have a plan to use up more of my fabric scraps to make yarn and weave it into a very small rug or mat. I'll keep you posted with any weaving I do finally get around to doing.
Do you ever fall down a YouTube/crafting rabbit hole?
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