Spinning Cassette tape and other tangles

Last Saturday was Experimental Spinning and the topic we were covering was spinning audio and video cassette tape.

I've been a bit remiss with blogging about this one, so I'm going to rectify the situation. However, thinking about this spinning raises more questions than it solves.

We didn't have many of us spinning, so were not able to explore alot of options. I used audio cassette tape and plyed it with some white top. I wrapped, around it and with it and was satisfied with the result. We did decide that to be really effective you would want thick bright coloured slubby yarn!

Some of the questions that were raised were:

1. What use would it really be, apart from 'because you can'?

2. It was reasonably soft, so would it make a hat?

3. If washed and left, would it rust AND dye the wool? (I HAVE to try this!)

Other interesting things were:

1. You need to do an awful lot of spinning to use up all those no longer used cassettes we all have lieing around the house.

2. There are lots and lots of bits in cassettes, once you pull them apart. Useful spools and potentially interesting tiny bits. (Could you glue them to glass?)

3. Don't pull apart an audio cassette tape before you spin. Cut the tape at one end and spin from the cassette, otherwise you could end up with a mess.

I now want to do some knitting with the resulting yarn and the tape on its own. I want to see how strong it is as a knitted fabric. Perhaps another sculpture or two is in order......