a little SPUN in the SUN on Earth Day ♥

Yesterday was Earth Day. My hope was to mark the day in some earth-friendly sort of way…

As it turned out, Sunday the 22nd of April was our first truly hot ‘n summery day of the 2012 season! Winds were also minimal. So yeah, right back at ya’ there, earth! It felt oh-so-good to take time to be kind to the earth—especially since the earth in that moment was bestowing such kindness upon us. All this seemed like the perfect day to take my newly acquired Turkish drop spindle outside for a test-spin.

Spinning newsprint and plastic into yarn has been at the top of my “craft to do” list for the longest time. Truly, plastic bags work up nicely for knit and/or crochet, yet I kept thinking that a spun plastic bag may make working with the material even better. Knitting with paper yarn would be a new experience, for me. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to give it a try. First, though, I needed to figure out how to spin…

Thanks to YouTube and all the world’s crafty individuals who take the time to post tutorials, I was able to enlighten myself about spinning! Amidst the abundance of useful videos, tutorials from Knit Picks and others quickly convinced me that the Turkish drop spindle may just be the best spin tool to get started with. Vickie Howell’s “Making Newspaper Yarn” tutorial is also a great demonstration of how simple it is to spin paper into yarn.

And now that my stash-building efforts have expanded to include old newspapers and plastic bags, it appears that SABLE is alive and well in my heart. Clearly, the time for spinning has come!

How did you mark Earth Day 2012? For me (with one old newspaper, a handful of plastic grocery bags, a pair of scissors and my Turkish drop spindle), it was a great day for a little spun in the sun!

Example of spun plastic “produce” bags from the grocery store.

Example of spun plastic grocery shopping bags cut into approximately 1.5″ strips for lace-weight plarn. The toilet paper roll makes a great fine fibre tamer 🙂

Example of spun plastic grocery shopping bags cut into thirds for worsted-weight plarn. The red/black “Safeway” logo gives this plarn a nice speckled touch of colour.