I spent some time making unusual combinations of materials to create new yarns. I had tried making "rope" out of wool before but plastics were new to me and I was surprised at the effects.
This first effort was with some cheap multi coloured acrylic yarn I had left from knitting a jumper for one of my grandchildren. The effects were surprising.
In each example the strands were all single yarn twisted tightly together then allowed to twist on their own. The thicker "rope" is ten lengths of wool, the second thickest is four and the thin one is just two lengths. Because of the variation in the colour of the wool the result was unpredictable so each rope looks completely different. I quite like that but if it were to be used in a piece careful selection of the wool would be needed.
The next four are all plastic. The top one is a red and a green net that had contained oranges (the hard sort of plastic). It gives a very interesting, spiky texture. The yellow one below was a soft net that lemons were wrapped in. This was far more stretchy and gave a result a bit like yellow bindatwine.
These two examples are from carrier bags. The pink and blue were treated in the same way as the orange nets but the effect was predictably quite different. The twist was harder to accomplish and there was no blending of the separate strands. The yellow below is a carrier bag handle which was quite rigid plastic. I plaited this and left it fairly loose. I got an open effect a bit like a firm chain stitch.
These are differing thickness strands of wool cut from a badly washed jumper. It was too small and too felted to be worn again. Although the thinner strands are not very stable they could be stitched into other fabric.
However, I decided to plait three together and immediately got something stronger. This would probably need to be couched on as it is quite thick.
This is felting wool and the top piece shows I plaited three different colours. I chose different colours so that I could see what happened to the plaiting. I did three lengths of plaiting then plaited the three plaits together. I felted the result. The end product was very firm and whilst it had felted the colours remained separate. It has a lovely cosy feel about it and reminds me of a warm dressing gown.
This could be used for an edging but would be much more versatile if it was self coloured. It would be interesting to see what two plaited strands twisted together and felted would do.
I love silk tops and have used the same plaiting and twisting techniques here as previously. Both of these examples started with three quite thin pices of silk but the results are very different. The plaiting is quite rigid whilst the twisting is much more flexible and tactile.
This has been a really enjoyable task and has made me think much more widely about the materials I can use. In the future when I want a particular texture I will certainly look further than my purchased threads into my other materials and be prepared to experiment. I was amazed for instance at the stretchiness of the orange nets and the way the twisted into something quite unrecognisable.
I can see that if enough of the developed yarn was available it could be knitted, crocheted or French knitted well.
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