February 14, 2008 by Cyndi Lavin
Filed under Arts & Crafts
Art Attack Thursday!
Greetje van Tiem has figured out a way to recycle old newspapers into surprisingly attractive yarn! Greetje, a graduate student when she developed the process, says that she can make 20 meters of yarn from a single sheet of newspaper. It will never seem right again to throw out the news without recycling it!
[...] fiber artist, Greetje van Tiem is doing just that! Cyndi from Layers Upon on Layers has the photo here 
Tags: Fabric, fiber arts, junk mail fabric, links, paper fabric, sewingShare This Related [...]
[...] I’m always interested when someone makes something useful out of seemingly nothing at all….or a few newspapers. [...]
[...] The ‘newspaper yarn’ has gone viral on the net…. everyone’s talking about it. Cyndi at Layers upon Layers has posted the link to it…. newspaper yarn [...]
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That is a-may-zing! I so want to see something made from it.
I’d like to know how it holds up, how she makes it, and what she makes with it. For all of us paperloving knitters this seems fantastic. Does she share her technique, sell it or teach it?
I couldn’t find any more info on how she does it, but you can see some examples of finished products on her website (link in post). I can’t give you a direct link, because she uses some sort of funky frames on her site. But if you go into her portfolio, you’ll see a pix of the yarn and you can click on that to see a cute little animated show of products.
check out the tutorial for newspaper yarn on craftster http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=203907.0
Wow, Kim…thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. And thank you to frankierevolver for posting such a great tutorial
That is so cool! Now if I could remember how to spin (it’s been quite a few years since I picked up a spindle)… I wonder if I can get my mom to show me how again
The Japanese have been spinning paper into yarn for hundreds of years. I took a workshop at my then-local weavers guild and learned it in the 80s. Basically, just cut the paper in thin strips in a Z so one sheet of paper has just two ends, tie it to the leader of the bobbin and insert twist. If you put in too much twist, it will break right away. If you don’t put in enough, it will break when you use it.
I would expect yarn made from modern newspaper to transfer it’s ink as readily to anything it comes in contact with as the newspaper does. Also, since it is made from recycled materials, I doubt it would hold up as well as ancient Japanese shifu (literally woven paper). But I have some very nice paper woven from spun sewing pattern paper!
Hi Marilyn! Follow the link just above yours, and you’ll see that my friend Noreen has used tissue paper! It’s wonderful to see how this idea is catching on, and then to find out that it’s really an ancient idea. Thanks so much for the information!
How durable is it though? That looks pretty cool being multi-colored.
Well, that seems to be the $64K question… I’ve heard from several sources now that you have to be pretty careful when you’re spinning it.