a vegan with a knitting tattoo – photo by erin.

just a quick post to share another thing i found while i was looking at examples of plarn on flickr: this spun newspaper yarn. i’m excited about this not just aesthically & for its neat technical execution, but because i’ve been thinking around the potential for crossover between knitted objects and book arts recently, and this yarn inspires a few ideas.

making crochet or knit objects from recycled plastic bags isn’t a new thing – i remember handbags that my mother or granny had made out of plastic bags from my childhood – but the phenomenon seems to have undergone an internet revival since i was last blogging regularly. “plarn” can be made by hand using just a pair of scissors, or spun on a wheel or spindle and plied with different coloured bags or other fibres.

the instructions for making plarn are pretty simple. there are a bunch of videos on youtube including a really quick introduction to making basic plarn from a shopping bag, and six minutes on methods for spinning and plying plarn.

for inspiration and tips, there’s a flickr group about knitting and crocheting with plastic bags which has a few discussions about working with plarn, and a facebook group with more ideas and pictures.

& there are some really interesting examples of plarn online:

jes makes beautiful spun plarn and sells it on her etsy shop. some of my favourites: plastic bag, cassette tapes & paper beads, yellow, orange, brown & blue, brown & green. i also really like this tissue paper yarn she made.

m. k. lawrie makes plastic bag yarn (and also
also yarn recycled from tshirts and flannel).

plastique recreations on etsy sells handmade things made of reused plastic, including plarn. some of my favourites: mint chocolate chip, grey and white, neon blue and yellow

i also like this “newsprint” plied plarn and linen by skeins and steins.

i knitted this hat this weekend, while catching up on tv & podcasts. it’s made from the ends of three random balls of acrylic yarns.

the shape was based on the pointy goblin hat i knitted a few years ago, but i ended it before it got pointy.

in migrating the blog over, i realised how much of the archive was apologies for not updating; i’m not going to pretend that i will be a regular knitting blogger from now on. but, sometimes i make things & want somewhere to write about it.

& so here i am, again.

Summer rain handspun soy silk

Originally uploaded by snowberrylime

this beautiful yarn is summer rain, soy silk handspun with little glass beads by veronika von allmen.

she’s been spinning a lot of beautiful soysilk lately – see also: “sunrise” pink & peach with flecks of yellow, gorgeous green, vintage pink with faux pearls & plain cream.

another vegan highlight of veronika’s etsy shop is handspun creamy cotton. this looks so soft!

other things found on etsy:
* daniela kloppmann (who sold me beautiful yarn a while ago) has some pretty things up at the moment – my favourites are: patchwork faux cashmere, patina soy silk, sweets handspun viscose which looks like an old fashioned candy shop.

* lots of beautiful handspun bamboo by different people: nevada sunset is shiny and faded, honeydew is like green melon, this little skein is jewel-coloured and spun with glass beads, new shoots bamboo is the colours of late spring.

* transition is all about spring too – a sproingy artyarn made from ingeo, cotton, tencel, linen, sparkle & beads.

* citrus handspun cotton/tencel is bright like orange juice.

* recycled, respun cotton in a very tasteful pink/green combo. soulfulhues also blogs about recycling yarn.

this is just a SELECTION. search for vegan yarn on etsy & be amazed at the range of animal-free gorgeousness.

meanwhile, my latest etsy purchase wasn’t knitting-related at all, but i’m so in love that i have to show you:

angry robot pouch (currently a camera case) from anatomy of a skirt. check out her robot a day project, wherein she makes limited edition robot variations. today’s is a picassobot!

slowest knitting ever – originally uploaded by moirabot

i haven’t actually knitted anything since moving house, but yesterday i unearthed an old project that i started last july and knitted a few more rows. i started this scarf after i realised that i’d developed the bad habit of knitting things that looked pretty, but weren’t actually my style, and consequently never wearing them. so i thought about the clothes i wore the most, and came up with something to match: black, asymmetrical & a bit technically interesting. it’s uneven ribs (i’ll take pictures when they’re a little more advanced), knitted in black chunky acrylic.

the scarf is being knitted on a pair of handmade tasmanian oak needles that i bought in hahndorf last year, while visiting adelaide for work. they’re made by art viva.

Insubordiknit yarn curtain – originally uploaded by insubordiknit

towards the beginning of last year, it seemed there was a huge increase in knitting-related podcasts. i haven’t been following them recently, but my very favourite is insubordiknit podcast. filled with stories from knitters’ lives, the inspiration behind some of jacey’s amazing handspun yarn and hip-hop breakdowns of what’s on the knitting sticks, the podcast is as awesome as everything else jacey does. the picture attached to this post is a “beaded” yarn curtain made from handspun yarn that you can buy from insubordiknit. more pictures of yarn curtains on flickr.

a couple of other honourable mentions that are of vegan knitting interest are:

irie knits – episode 9: the vegan episode briefly explains what veganism is and how it relates to knitting, and talks about foxfibre organic cotton yarn and other vegan yarns (referencing my vegan yarn page!).

stash and burn – in episode 20: ltb or bust, nicole and jenny both knitted the same tank top with different brands of bamboo yarn, so they talk about the pattern (lotus blossom tank from interweave knits) and compare the yarn they used: plymouth royal bamboo and south west trading company bamboo.

what are your favourite knitting podcasts? are there any other vegan podcasts that have talked about knitting, or knitting podcasts that have talked about veganism?

Knit Night Cupcakes – Yarn Balls – originally uploaded by teenytinyturkey

you may have seen these already, i’m a little out of the vegan knitting loop: knit night cupcakes! they’re vegan in the edible sense, and so famous they were featured on the martha stewart show.

go see more photos on flickr (including pictorial instructions for knitted marzipan) and check out more of lolo’s vegan recipes (& amazing food photography) at veganyumyum.com.

meanwhile, here is a house-moving tip for people who, like me, have a lot of books and yarn: when packing, don’t fill whole boxes with books. instead, put a manageable number of books in a box and pack around them with yarn. this way you efficiently pack two types of thing at once, the corners of your books are protected from bumping, and the resulting boxes are not too heavy.