What to Do with Small Amounts of Fiber

Have you ever completed a spinning project and found that you have a small amount of fiber left over? Or have you acquired small fiber samples that you don’t think are worth the trouble to spin?

I don’t know about you, but I hate to just throw these small bits away. So, I’ve thought of a couple of things you can use them for:

• Leave them out for the birds for nesting material – I’ve had mixed success with this – the birds seem rather picky about the fibers they like.
• Card it in with other types of fiber to create an interesting batt
• If it’s an animal fiber, particularly wool, use it for needle felting

The last idea – needle felting – is my personal favorite, even though I don’t do as much of it as I’d like. If you’ve never done needle felting before, you might want to give it a try – it’s actually quite fun! All you really need is wool or alpaca or another animal fiber, a needle felting needle, and a surface to work on so you don’t accidentally stab yourself. You can use needle felting to create an embellishment on a knitted or crocheted object or you can create an entire new object with needle felting – like some of the wonderful creations at Glass Dragon Bears Etc.’s Etsy store.

If you’d like to learn more about needle felting, here are a couple of sites to visit:

• All Buttoned Up has an excellent written tutorial on needle felting
• Fiber Arts Video has posted a few videos that demonstrate how to do needle felting

What other uses have you found for leftover fiber?