Magpie Yarn

he other day I stumbled onto Stacey Budge-Kamison’s work at Urbangypz.com and I was inspired!  My first project on my finished loom was getting irredeemably frogged, so I busted it down and rewarped with colors – fresh from watching Stacey’s work.

Watching art yarn go from scraps of fibers up to a finished piece was so exciting.  But I don’t have a massive fancy fiber stash.  What I have is a moderate stash of really nice acrylics and blends, as well as a lot of Lily cotton, with some miscellaneous fibers in there (wool, cellulose, and silk).  One thing I learned from watching Stacey’s videos was that one doesn’t need super expensive fibers to make exciting yarn.  A great big old duh moment for me!

For the weft on this project, I am using so many different things.  I’m mixing cheapy acrylics and blends to form new yarn.  I call this magpie yarn, because I’m taking all sorts of sources and recombining them in catchy ways.  They’re getting braided….

Spun….

Tied together…..

And (though this is not for the current project) they are getting manicures!

I really want to play with beading yarn, but many of my yarns are too thick to go through my jewelry beads.  I began to wonder what would happen if they were painted with something that nail polish, forming “beads”.  Testing this out to see what happens.   If it works, it’s probably not feasible for great lengths of yarn.  But if successful, it may look cool!!  This is Lily Sugar ‘n’ Cream cotton yarn with various nail polishes dabbed on.  Black, rose, and this iridescent grey/purple.

Here’s to experimentation!!