hand spun newsprint
A few days ago, there was a tutorial on spinning newsprint into a type of yarn on the greenupgrader.com website.
The spools of newsprint on the site seem to have a really delicate yarn on them. Although I didn’t know what I was going to make with the yarn, I wanted to make some.
First I needed a spindle to spin with. After looking all over the internet for instructions, I put a hybrid of instructions together to write an instructable for a spindle. If you’ve never heard of it before, instructables.com is an open-source site for patterns, instructions, and how-to’s on almost anything you can dream up.
Here is my instructable on constructing a Drop Spindle. On the last page, there is a video from a crafty spinning website, The Art of Megan, that shows you how to spin wool.
After I had my new spindle, I started spinning. I noticed that the 1/2 inch strips of newspaper were creating a thicker yarn than what the tutorial indicated.
Thinking that my brand new spinning technique could be flawed a little bit, I kept spinning, trying to get the yarn a little thinner, but it kept tearing off on those attempts. Also, in cutting the newspaper, my strips could have been a little wider than 1/2 inch. Next time I spin newsprint, I’ll measure out an exact 1/2 inch for the strips.
I ended up getting a couple of spindlefulls of yarn from one section of the newspaper. One warning, my fingers turned black really quickly. The ink does rub off on your fingers, and then when knitting, on the tips of the needles. Amazingly the newsprint does not look smudged after spinning.
I knitted up this swatch on size 13 needles. It isn’t the most enjoyable stuff to knit, and I did get two tears in the swatch. One tear stuck back together after being slightly moistened, and the other just wants to completely unravel. Both of the tears happened in previously knitted rows, when I was working rows above the place of the tear.
Even though spun newsprint isn’t a perfect medium, the finished texture is amazing. I’m not quite sure when or how to use it since it needs to stay away from water. It would be good for a semi-transparent room divider, or a thick platter/place setting for dry goods only. I can’t get the stitch down small enough to obscure any stuffing behind the material.
How would you use hand spun newsprint?