Hiya all!  Scifi Chris here with a post about projects made from atypical fibers.

Yarn can be made out of just about any material, from the traditional wool to the very nontraditional plarn.  These are some projects using materials a little different from “regular” yarn.

Carol’s two puppies were chewing through their leashes.  She decided to crochet some new leashes out of paracord, which is used as the cord on parachutes.  Doug happened to have some paracord and generously shared it with Carol.  Using directions she found online, she made two leashes.  The blue and purple leash was made with one strand of each color doubled over and woven as a 4-strand braid.  Carol said that it was easy to make, but hard on the hands.  The red leash was woven on a two pegged loom that Carol’s husband helped her make out of a pill container, two nails and duct tape.  (oh duct tape, is there anything you can’t do?) 

Carol was very happy with the results and was all set to start making more leashes, then she discovered a website selling leashes with a guarantee to replace them if they are chewed through.  That was the end of making leashes, although Carol admits it was fun while it lasted.

 

 Ribbon yarn is made from fabric.  Just like the name implies, it looks like thin fabric ribbon.  The finished texture is more cloth like than using traditional yarns.  Barbara is knitting a scarf made from a ribbon yarn in a color called City Lights.  She’s just doing basic straight knitting, back and forth, which made up very fast.  The ribbon yarn takes the simple stitch to a whole other level, making the scarf look very spiffy.

 

Back in the intro I mentioned plarn.  What the heck is plarn, you may be wondering.  Plarn is yarn made from plastic bags cut into strips.  Plarn can be made  into things such as sturdier bags, rugs, coasters, or flip flops.  It has even been used for sculptures.  Back in 2011, 3RC was one of several groups that helped make plarn breasts for an art project called Something In the Water http://h2oforall.blogspot.com/p/project-description-and-guidelines.html  The art project was a statement piece trying to draw attention to how pollution can contaminate water that is drunk by nursing mothers, who could then pass those contaminates to breastfeeding babies.  It definitely was one of the most unusual projects 3RC has worked on.  More pics and info can be found here.  http://h2oforall.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=18

 

 I made a much less wild project using plarn, a tote bag.  It took about 40 large bags, cut into strips.  It was an interesting project, but a lot of work cutting all those bags into strips and joining them together.  I had to add the strap like strip around the bag because plarn is very stretchy. 

 

This last item isn’t yarn at all, its meant to hold yarn.  It’s a nylon sleeve designed to keep the skein of yarn from unraveling and getting tangled.  Carol, creative crafty person, just makes her own using old pantyhose.  After she retired, she wasn’t wearing them so they were given a second life as yarn skein holders.