Wrapping Up Things in My Mind

Got little bits of yarn left over from a knitting, crocheting, weaving, cross stitch or crewel project?



Here's one way to use it up:

Get some cording at least as big as your finger in circumference, the kind that typically is used to make cording for furniture. Such cording is readily available in fabric stores, and quite inexpensive.



Wrap your yarn around the cording.

To start, put the end, or "tail" of the yarn pointing towards the middle of the cord and then wrap over the tail of the yarn from the end and continue wrapping toward the middle of the cording.

Use the same technique each time you change colors.

If you are particularly obsessive/compulsive or have busy fingered children around you can use a large needle to thread the tail through the cord a few times to anchor it more firmly.


Create "beads" along the way by doing multiple wraps in one place, then stitch over and through the bead with a contrasting color to keep the multiple wraps stable.

I personally like using metallic yarn for this part, and sometimes even thread glass beads on the stabilizing yarn to add more visual interest.

I created this cord years ago, using yarn from a weaving project in college. The cord has been on Christmas trees, used as a belt, and woven into greenery.

Wrapping the yarn is as simple as can be. To make the cord appear a bit more unified in the end, you could make sure you had a significant amount of one or two colors to insert regularly to tie the odd bits of left over yarn colors together.

Wrapping like this I really enjoy. Wrapping gifts? Not so much. I grumble and complain my way through every gift wrapping project, feeling guilty that I don't enjoy it, yet also feeling reluctant to spend the money on gift bags that announce that I am too lazy/inept to wrap up a gift with perfectly fitted folds and esthetically pleasing ribbon/paper co-ordination.

My daughter Laura on the other hand is an amazing gift wrapper. She plots her gift wraps, making sure what is outside the gift box is as special as what is inside it.

I have no idea where she got this talent from.
No one else in the family (for generations!) has been able to wrap a gift with any style at all.

On the other hand...I'm not sure that any of that matters.

Nobel Peace prizes are handed out for "thinking" about peace making; I am going to award myself kudos for "thinking" about doing artistic gift wrapping.

Yeah...that will work!

Oh...and by the way America is currently 11 trillion plus dollars in debt (and to give you a perspective about what that means...one trillion seconds will pass in 31,688 years) and yet Hillary Clinton is pledging that America will raise 100 billion to fight the faux global warming issue (one hundred billion seconds will pass in 3200 years by the way...oh, and Happy Year 2010 to you all in advance).

I've decided to see Hillary's offer and raise it another 120 billion.

Why not?

If she can offer money from a negative account balance, and since I currently have a positive account balance, I think I should do more than she has offered.

Do I have 120 billion dollars?

No...but remember...all that is necessary for good to attributed to us is to "think and consider" what we COULD or MIGHT do.

I challenge everyone reading this to do like wise: Offer as many billion as you feel/think you want to. Even if you are flat broke.

Remember, it is the thought that counts.

Don't get wrapped up in the truth...reserve that activity for using up your left over yarn!