I’ve mentioned that my saving of scraps of just about anything (yarn, fabrics, carding waste etc) knows no bounds. Trash batts are my next scrap using experiment. Batts are the rectangle of processed fibre that results from carding using hand-carders or a drum carder.
I’ve asked before when are remnants and scraps too small to use? It seems no scraps are too small. After using fabric remnants to make curtains I’ve finally come round to using up another class of scrap or remnant. The scraps left over from sewing in yarn ends into a granny square blanket have now found a use.
I’m rather fond of some tweedy wool I have in my yarn stash and wanted to spin yarn like it myself. So, I’d saved these scraps with the idea that I would snip them into little pieces and add into wool fibre during carding to achieve a tweedy effect.
The granny square blanket project has been an on-and-off affair. Deliberately, I should add, as it’s handy to have a project on the go when you need something that’s portable, easy to pick up, and mindless in a nice way. But, I digress. I’d got to a point where I thought that a round of granny squares fringed in dark, chocolate brown needed breaking up with some squares which weren’t so solid dark brown. A little mottled and tweedy. So, the bag of yarn scraps was unearthed.
How to Use Yarn Scraps In Trash Batts
My first task was to spit the yarn ends into single strands as I thought that the dk/light worsted weight would be too thick to wind itself into the yarn during spinning. It proved to be time consuming, but not in a bad way. It’s a mindless activity that has its place. This time whilst watching tv.
I nipped the pile of scraps into short lengths in no time at all. Once I mixed them into a carded batt of Black Welsh and Shetland Moorit fibres, with small slivers of pink carding waste, they made a delightfully fluffy pile. The pink carding waste is left over from fleece dyed with the exhaust from a madder dye bath.
And so I began to spin but it didn’t take long to realise that the wool scraps were slightly too long and seemed determined to escape being entirely trapped into the new yarn. All well and good for an art yarn where random loose ends are ‘de rigeur’. But, that wasn’t the effect I was looking for.
Back to the drawing board. This time I got scissor-happy and snipped the yarn scrap pile into 1cm long smaller piles. This time spinning was a success.
The squares fringed with this wool merged in nicely with the solid dark brown:
Advantages of Using Yarn Scraps
It may seem time consuming to use those yarn scraps. However, for your time, you’re making use of free materials that you would otherwise discard, even if they could go into a compost bin. Out of your little pile of scraps you can extend the use of some wool fibre to create another product. One hank of wool fibre could make a conventional plain yarn and a tweedy yarn.
This goes well with another aim of mine which is to look for opportunities to make zero waste clothes which are clothes from scraps. Tweedy yarn could find their way into hand knit or hand crochet clothes.
On and Off Crochet Blanket Project
Meanwhile, the on-going crochet blanket has been one of those projects where I don’t feel I have to wait an age to appreciate the results. It’s already in use as a lap-warmer…. just one that grows a little when I have spare time to add on a few more squares whilst in the middle of something else.
The something else is pattern drafting and sewing. More on that another time.
So clever…crocheting is one thing I can't do though.
Easy to learn. If you can knit, you can crochet.
So true. It’s all about looping wool around a stick, so knitting skills transfer well to crochet 😉
Hi Katherine, if you want to give it a try, I'd say crochet is easier to learn than you might think. A friend has recently learnt to crochet granny squares using a U-tube video, after a short spell with me learning the basics at a craft group meeting. You could learn crochet from basics onwards though using U-tube videos. I'm about to post more thoughts on this. Take heart….
Any thoughts on using tiny fabric scraps? I have a bag of scrap too small to sew and thought I’d spin them with wool fiber on my wheel. They are narrower than 2 inches and not long enough to make fabric yarn.
Hi Tina, yes I think it’s worth a go. I’d thought of doing this too, but haven’t yet. Perhaps if you cut the fabric strips down very narrow (say 1/2 cm) and just long enough to bind into the wool fibre, but long enough for ends to poke out, you’d end up with an art yarn. It would be fiddly, but if you end up with an interesting yarn, then it’s worth the effort. If you try it and it works, let me know, I’d be interested to hear!