Upcycle paper for bobbin and string goddess

One way of organizing yarns and threads is to wind them onto bobbins. This works great, but can use up all your bobbins.

Why not upcycle paper into wrapped quills instead of using bobbins?  and who knows?

You might get inspired,

like I did, and wind your thread

into sculptural forms like these

Wrapped Thread Goddesses of Upcycling!

I am lucky enough to have

a bobbin winder for  the long bobbins

used in weaving shuttles.

I have found that winding bobbins

is a great way to store yarn and thread,

as it makes dense, compact units of thread

or yarn that are often smaller than the way

the yarn or thread originally entered your life.

If you don’t have a bobbin winder,

a hand held drill works okay for winding bobbins.

When we drove off to a small town about an hour away to buy tractor parts for our ancient tractor, Jim and I were talking about Christmas presents. He wondered if I would like more wooden bobbins. He turns them on the lathe, and they are gorgeous.

I thought about it, and said that it was an awful lot of work to turn the bobbins, but I would love a cool little box to hold wound up bobbins in. And, then I thought… hmmm… why not make paper quills for storing threads and yarns instead of putting my bobbins into limbo by using them for yarn storage…. hmmm….

Whenever we go to other towns,

we always look for a second hand or thrift store.

Sure enough, we found one,

and lo and behold!

There was this enchanting little

(very grubby) Mother Goose box,

with a sadly broken nose.

She’s perfect for holding little

quills of thread and yarn!

And, of course, I found a couple of bags

of thread and yarn to put into her!

In the photo above, along side Mother Goose, there is a piece of junk mail that I have torn in half, an 11 mm knitting needle and a bone folder.  I used the folder to tear the paper in half.

In this photo,

I have wrapped the paper around the knitting

needle -

quite tightly.

And, I have started

wrapping some

brown paper tape around the

tube of paper to secure the wraps.

You can use a dab or glue or

any kind of tape to hold the wraps.

At the bottom of this photo

there is a paper quill,

and above it,

there is a paper quill,

wound with yarn.

The lumpy thing

right in front of

Mother Goose is

a rather tangled skein

of yarn, identical to

the one that I wound

onto the center quill.

It really makes it compact, doesn’t it?

I couldn’t resist buying a bag of

6 partial balls of

#10 crochet cotton.

Look how much less space

the partial ball takes up

when wound onto

a paper quill!

Paper quills can be used

in boat shuttles for weaving,

but can’t be chubbied up the

way I have done with these ones, as

they won’t turn freely in the shuttle

if they are packed so full.

And, here is the Mother Goose

box, full of upcycled paper quills,

organizing a whole treasure trove

of second hand yarns and threads.

And, as I said earlier,

I got all inspired

while I was winding the

quills, and ended up

getting all sculptural about it.

I am so easily inspired and even more easily amused!