Guest post : Indestructible yarn from old pillow stuffing

The following post was created by Hand Spinning News supporter Barbara Longley, who adds, 

"I love making something out of nothing even though I have plenty of the proper yarns. I would say that the right pillow stuffing is almost as good as the recycled white plastic milk carton fibre I bought. I have made (baggy) socks from  it and you just cannot wear them out."

 Don’t discard your old pillows. A very useable strong hardwearing but soft synthetic yarn can be made from the stuffing and it's fun to do. I washed the pillow in the washing machine first then dried in the tumble drier.

 This is the carded synthetic pillow stuffing. This drum carder was given to me by a friend whose father actually made it for his mother in the 50s. This is about half a pillow’s worth.

 Another tip... I used my knitting needle gauge as a dizz using a the thicker needle holes  to pass the  fibre through.

 Next I added some World of Wool  Nylon Tricolour Rainbow just to jazz it up a bit. You can add anything you like or leave plain.

 I started spinning it up on my Ashford electric spinning wheel. I did have a proper Elizabeth type spinning wheel but sold it when I found this so much better for me.

 Another view of the yarn. You can get a lot on the big bobbins.

 Plying the yarn. It  comes out slightly thicker than DK, but of course it rather depends on how thin you spin the singles in the first place.

 Transferred to my wool winder. If you didn’t wash your pillow first, then you might be better skeining it up and washing it at this stage.

 Finished yarn. One thing to mention is that if knitting in rib, being synthetic it does not retain its elasticity. I have used it to knit socks but for myself, I prefer a slightly baggy top!

 This weighed about 5 ounces and was about 1/2 to 3/4 of the pillow stuffing... and free!

~ Barbara Longley

Current exhibitions of textile-related art

 I've been producing Hand Spinning News monthly for around 17 years. It's evolved a little over the years but one area that's growing is the textile art section, headed 'But is it art...?' 

 I try to keep HSN focussed on spinning and handspun yarn but I do allow that section to broaden out a little, simply because I'm particularly interested in it. 

 Beautifully and skilfully made functional work is 'craft' and that has a firm place in my heart but so does art.

 I'm trying to travel less but in the last week I've found myself in the Midlands and in East Anglia, and it seemed opportune to visit a couple of exhibitions that interested me. 

 I've recently listed two separate exhibitions at Yorkshire Sculpture Park; Rise by L R Vandy and Time’s Scythe by Nicola Turner.

 Nicola has netted raw, unprocessed sheep's wool (possibly processed wool too) to create tendrils that cascade from the balcony of the chapel down into the main space as well as outside, like a growing, living thing. Possibly sinister / hostile. Hand shears add to the effect. 

 The smell is a familiar one if you've processed raw fleece. Some people don't like it but I find it pleasant. It was subtle, not as overpowering as you'd expect. There are samples of the materials available for handling.

 L R Vandy's exhibition also featured tools and materials that were once a symbol of labour and trade. She has intentionally turned them into objects representing leisure and pastimes such as dancing. 

These mandalas feature weaving shuttles, mostly containing thread 

 She has also used rope, mainly for dancing figures and a large maypole, but this makes me think of a drop spindle. 

 I didn't become aware of the Norfolk Contemporary Crafts exhibition soon enough to include it in the last newsletter but this is one reason for the Patreon page, where paying and non-paying readers can sign up. For free members, there will be a notification when each new free edition is published, and everyone can receive timely information like this. 

  HSN Patron Tracy Myers is excited to be showing her Saori and rigid heddle weaving as a guest with the Norfolk Contemporary Craft Society at their Summer exhibition, St Margaret's Church, St Benedict's Lane, Norwich. The show runs until the 28June

Tracy's shawls pair beautifully with these ceramics. Others are on display in their own right. 

The standard of the work on display is very high. I also particularly liked Penny Evans' felted work:

And how about dried flowers woven into work:

St Margaret's is perfect for such a show:

Panopeia from Expression Fiber Arts

 I haven't been very good at updating this blog recently, so I have a couple of updates.

My Madriga wasn't going so well last year. I'd made a mistake somewhere and had more stitches than I should. That would involve some backtracking. I put it down and didn't feel motivated to sort it out. Does that kind of thing get you like that too?

So I was very glad when Mum asked me to help out with her Panopeia.  The stockinette section is simple. The lace section looks simple - it's a simple repeat of k2tog and yo. However, there are many varied ways to go wrong, and one wrong stitch can cause a jog in the pattern which is very obvious. After ripping back a few times (the yarn didn't make this easy) Mum handed it over and asked me to finish the lace on the part she was doing. I ripped back the other part too and re-knit it, because although the pattern wasn't too bad, there were some unintentional increases and 'fanning out'. 

The yarn is a one-of-a-kind (be sure to buy enough for your project) indie-dyed 4-ply sock yarn from Rainoftheroses.  I think it's millspun but small-scale. It had a handspun feel. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this. It's a straightforward pattern but requires a lot of care to avoid going wrong. I didn't take any pictures while I was working, but here's a cropped picture of the top being worn over a sleeved top:

Knitting a rubik's cube

I made this cube for my boyfriend, he's not just good at them; he can solve them one-handed while riding a unicycle, or tackle this kind of thing.

This isn't instructions or a pattern, it's just a blog post about what I did. However, I made it up as I went along, so if you have a little bit of knitting experience, I'm sure you could do the same.

It's not just a dust-gatherer. It does have some other functions, which I'll mention as I go along.

Cotton yarn won't pill or stretch and this particular yarn comes in a selection of nice bright colours. I don't think the type or weight of yarn is important, but as with toys I guess a nice tight gauge is best because you don't want the stuffing to show through. I knit that yarn on 4mm needles.

6 rows by 6 stitches seemed about right, plus a couple of stitches and rows to allow for mattress-stitching. So 8x8. You'll obviously want 9 little squares of each of 6 colours.

That's a lot of tails! Long ones are useful for stitching up. There's no weaving-in because they'll all be lost inside and help to fill the finished item.

It's vital to find a diagram of an actual scrambled cube, or use a real scrambled cube as a guide. If you place the colours randomly, it probably won't be solvable and is the equivalent of giving a musician a card with nonsense musical notes on it. 

I used this online generator for the image above. It's about 25 moves from being solved, but unfortunately I didn't save that solution and it's now lost. But that does give the knitted one another function as a puzzle: find the shortest solution from this state.

As mentioned, I used mattress stitch to sew the small squares into big squares, and then the big squares into the arrangement in the diagram and finally sewed that into the 3D shape, all bar one edge.

Most of the time you're mattress-stitching stitches that go in the same direction, but it's necessary to sew vertical to horizontal along some edges, which is harder to make neat.

I used duplicate stitch to add the black as I went along . 

A lavender bag adds another function. I understand that lavender is also a spider-deterrent, which is yet another function.

I buried the lavender bag in the middle, surrounded by regular toy stuffing and the numerous ends.

Once sewn up, the same duplicate stitch can be used along the edges.

The stuffing wants to push the cube out into a ball. I had  hoped that the stitched edges, and the lack of stretch in the cotton yarn would help hold the cube shape. I packed this in a cube-shaped box in order to help form the cube shape. 

This year his cake was also a cube and featured the same pattern, but without the colours on the bottom side. 

Finished scarf - based on the Snow Queen Snood

My scarf is based on the Snow Queen Snood and in a couple of previous posts I showed the process of making the Zoom Loom squares. The creamy-white is handspun from some fleece which I believe was a gift. The teal is Norfolk Horn from Jenn at fibreworkshop.co.uk that I sent to Freyalyn for dyeing. I made 48 squares altogether which makes a nice large scarf. I chose not to join the ends.

Some of these are two-colour. This turns out to be easy. You usually make four layers with the Zoom Loom so all you need to do is to change colour so that you have 1 and 3 or 2 and 2. I made some squares 1/4 blue and 3/4 white, and some 1/4 white and 3/4 blue. 

I enjoyed cross-stitching the snowflakes using a design I found online. This could have been a little larger but hey. Cross-stitching onto pin-loom squares works extremely well and is something I want to explore further. 

Previously I have made a blanket by crocheting the edges together. This makes quite a heavy join which is effective, but in this case I wanted it to look more continuous and I chose a stitch that's like mattress stitch. 

It was quite puckered after stitching but flattened out after a soak. I didn't go to the trouble of getting out the blocking mat and wires (I was also concerned about pulling loops out all the way around the edge) so I simply pulled it flat and let it dry.  Pressing it flat between two towels (just by walking on it, not using an iron) was very effective at flattening it. 

I haven't (yet) fulled it at all, just soaked it. I do feel that it needs a little more softening so I may give it the 'waulking' treatment to see what happens. I'm also tempted to add a faux fringe.

My stack o'squares is growing

I've been randomly making the blue or white squares to add interest but haven't yet looked into how to make the the two-colour ones or tried stitching the snowflake. 

Hello, old friend

 The title applies to both my spinning wheel and my Zoom Loom. It's been too long since I used either.

I finished spinning the white mystery fleece. It's not as consistent as I'd like and parts of it are a little thin but it's OK and I do have around 200yds which I think is what I need.

I did enjoy doing the longdraw. It's a fast way to spin and when it goes right it's very satisfying and produces a nice bouncy yarn. I began by pulling handfuls from my nests but I found it went better if I took the trouble to pull it out a bit and roll it around a 1" rod to make rolags, then pinch off sections as I spun. 

With the white finished and wound into balls, it was time to reacquaint myself with the Zoom Loom. The instructions are clear but the first square took a little longer than I remembered. However, I did remember to wind the first layers with no tension at all, because the weaving tightens them up and can get difficult when you reach the end. I'm sure I'll get faster at making them, but with 48 to produce, and learning how to use two colours, I won't be wearing my scarf until the Spring!