Newpaper Yarns – What can Spinners do with the News

I’ve always found the prospect of recyling fibres into yarn fascinating. The emergence of something new for a discard seems so noble! Many years ago I wrote a booklet ‘T-Shirt Yarns‘ (PDF File) based on a workshop by Catherine Mick (Canada) on creating beautiful yarns from stretch fabrics. She was an inspiring woman and I was impressed by such a creative approach to making yarn from discarded T shirts.
In this same light, Anne Howe from the Online Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers directed us to this site, about yarn from newspapers.The artist Greetje van Tiem spins newspaper into yarn then weaves/knits it. Of course paper yarn is not new, but being reminded how easy it is to create and how we can use and experment with it is always great.

I just HAD to have a go…

My first experiment used the Woolworths pamphlet and this was far too shiny for the purpose. Ordinary traditional newsprint was a bit too weak. I then tried the higher quality newsprint found in various ‘lifestyle’ sections of newspapers. These are usually stand alone booklets with staples. I used the Spectrum section of the Sydney Morning Herald.
I cut the strips about 10mm-12mm wide in a continuous fashion as shown in the photos above. I then used a spinning wheel to spin the yarn dampening it down with a light spray of water as I spun. I had to manually feed the yarn into the spindle sometimes but on the whole it was quite easy to do. I think as I experiment more I will be able to get the yarn to wind on more efficently.

What an empowering way to deal with the news…spinning it.