I have quite a bee in my bonnet about zero waste
at the workshop we make quilts and jackets out of patched offcuts
but there were other bits of cloth left over
Khadi yarn was one thing we made which can be turned into useful mats like these.
Ultimately anything at the workshop we can’t use goes to a guy who shreds it and re-spins it as yarn and makes it into mats- so I am happy to report our workshop is pretty close to zero waste
How to make khadi cotton ‘yarn’
Indra Madam at the workshop is our khadi yarn hero.
Not only do we work towards zero waste, we create a job making this yarn- happy, happy.
We use a medium weight cotton cloth.
If the cloth was thinner we would make the strips a little wider, if the cloth is heavier, it would be hard to use- Do a little test before you shred up acres of cloth- will it work for your project?
I crotchet mats and like to use the biggest hook I can find, makes it easy to work with.
- *cut cotton into strips about 1.5 cm/ half inch wide
How to make silk sari ‘yarn’
This is a good techniques for much finer fabrics- machining them together gives an added strength to the yarn.
Sari yarn is a much longer process, started in the workshop and finished at home by Ladies on Machines.
First find the saris-
we look through mountains of second-hand saris, to find the right colours
burn a corner to see it is silk
rip to 3 cm wide strips
give to Home Machine Ladies to machine into continuous yarn.
It then comes back to us to be washed and rolled into 100 gm bundles to go to our shop.
