How can I reuse or recycle a lot of white yarn?
We’ve had another email from friend of Recycle This Petra:
From my sister in law I inherited a lot of yarn, mostly small balls of the same. I know you covered the item about the short ends of yarn and what to do with it. My question is a bit related.
A lot of the yarn is white or off-white. Not a colour I would choose for knitting a sweater for myself. And also for my kids, white is not a very
handy choice. Moreover, most of the yarn is synthetic, which I don’t really like to wear and makes it difficult to paint in a different colour.
So, my question is: What can I do with that white yarn? It is a box full of yarn (20 by 30 by 20 cm).
It’s not the right season to be thinking about it but my first thought was snowflake Christmas decorations (Mary Horesh recommended this crochet pattern on Twitter when she made them in December) – but if you used all of the yarn to make snowflakes, it would be more like a 10ft deep blizzard rather than a pretty delicate sprinkling of decorative snow ;)
Looking forward rather than back, I don’t wear white or choose to wear synthetics either but a lot of people do – and spring & summer are the months when a little white shrug or cardigan might be useful – perhaps keep some and pass the rest on to someone else via Freecycle/Freegle or Ravelry’s destash area.
Any other suggestions of patterns of things to make with it (ideally not clothes)? Or places to pass it on?
(Photo by missa88)
Synthetic yarn generally makes good pot scrubbers, and some of it is good for face cloths as well. If you use it in crafting, it can often be painted. I dunno, it depends on the synthetic whether I’ll wear it, and if it has lots of nylon, you can dye it like wool with food colors.
I would use it to make an afghan, several rows of white and a couple rows of variegated colors that included white yarn. I have made a few baby afghans like this and the white rows (maybe 8-10) make the two rows of variegated colors pop.
Another thing I would do with them is to crochet round balls and fill the center with a cloth stuffed and tied with catnip or catmint…..cats love these.
Because this is synthetic it will wash ok in the machine. Therefore I would think of decorating bed linen or towels or other things that get washed often. Think of what you might do if it was white cotton. For example:
You could crochet a deep lace edging on bath or hand towels giving them a bit of a fancy/luxurious appearance. Or you could crochet the edge on towels you give away as presents. Or just a narrow lace around face washers. Sure cotton would be nicer, but this should look and feel good too.
If the yarn is not too thick you could crochet lace to go around pillowcases.
Could be used for crocheting dolls clothes.
If you had a small window, or a long narrow window in a door perhaps you could crochet a nice curtain for that window.
How about one of those “mile a minute” type afgans where you crochet or knit with 4 or 5 different strands at the same time. You can blend a whole bunch of textures, types and colours together at the same time.
The white could help tone down some shocking or painful colour!
Make a teddy bear!
2 legs of 20 stiches by 40 rows
2 arms of 15 stiches by 32 rows
1 body peice of 20 stiches by 136 rows
Once your done fold the body peice in half so you have a rectangle thats 20 stiches wide still
Fold the legs in half so the legs are about 10 stiches wide
Fold the arms in half so the arms are 15 stiches wide and 16 rows long.
Sew round the outside of each one, leaving a place to stuff.
Stuff each peice with stuffing or old material, or anything that wont poke through the wool.
Sew up the end of each peice
Sew the arms and legs onto the body, leaving space at the top of the body for the head. Sew buttons on for eyes and a nose, wrap a peice of ribbon round its neck to give it a neck :P
Then you have one cute teddy, that looks kindof like Mr Beans ted :D and you can have whatever colour bear you want :D
Thats our favourite project in our college knitting circle
Enjoy x
As to answer my own question:
I started to use some of the wool to crochet a duster, like this one
http://lixiemakesit.blogspot.com/2008/05/tawashi-pattern-furry-mitt.html
And since it went so well, I also made a cover for my window cleaning tool with a very long stick. Now I can use it as a ceiling mop.
Because of the loops, you need a lot of yarn for it and synthetic is only good for these kind of things.
Yarns could create great textured in a painting or mixed media piece of art…
http://feliciafollum.blogspot.com/2011/02/circuits-inspired-art.html – here is an alternative drawing idea…I used string for one of my drawings in this class.
you could make a yarn wreath-I have seen pictures of all white yarn for Christmas and they are quite nice. Check out this link.
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2010/11/how-to_yarn_ball_wreath.html
Pillow covers or cushions, bed throws etc
Handbags or totes (with lining)