"Painting" With Yarn

Do you love crafts but often find them too complicated or requiring too much skill? Here is a fun and simple project that may be right up your alley. "Painting" with yarn is fun and easy. All you need are a few simple supplies that you probably already have around the house, and a little creativity.

A canvas (whatever size you choose to fit your design)

Yarn (whatever colors you want for your design)

Glue

Scissors

Pencil

This step is pretty easy. If you are drawing your own design, then you do that by lightly drawing your picture or pattern directly onto you canvas with your pencil.

If you are tracing a design onto your canvas, make sure that your design is outlined in a thicker dark line, like a permanent marker would make. Then position your design where you want it and tape it face up onto the back of your canvas. You should be able to see your design. If not then you may need to put your canvas over a light box if you have one or hold it on a sunny window till you see your design, then trace it onto the front of your canvas. Once your design is on your canvas, you may remove your design from the back.

Note: If you have a lot of design of the same color right next to each other, you should add space between each peace so you do not end up with just a blob color in an unidentifiable shape. Look at the pictures able to see how I spaced out the flower petals and the parts of the leaves.

If you do not want to leave spaces you can outline your entire design in a different color, like black, as if you were drawing with the yarn. Then you can "paint" it all in with the other colors you chose.

Now we start the fun stuff. You can work from top to bottom or whatever you feel will work best for you, making sure you can continue working without messing up what you have already done. I started from the center and worked out because I was doing a flower so that felt more natural, but top to bottom may be a good plan.

At this point, you can choose to work continuously by pulling and using the yarn from the center of your skein, or you can pull out a long section and cut it off, and work that way, cutting more sections as you go.

If you are working with a small shape you can fill the whole shape in with glue first then fill with yarn, otherwise, outline the piece you are working with, with glue then go over with the yarn, pressing it into the glue as you go. Some of your yarn will get white on it from the glue. Don't sweat it. It should dry clear. If you are not sure about the glue you are using, you can test it on a snip of yarn before you start or go any further.

Reminder: If you have a lot of design of the same color right next to each other, you should add space between each peace so you do not end up with just a blob color in an unidentifiable shape. Look at the pictures able to see how I spaced out the flower petals and the parts of the leaves.

If you do not want to leave spaces you can outline your entire design in a different color, like black, as if you were drawing with the yarn. Then you can "paint" it all in with the other colors you chose.

After you have glued your whole cut section of yarn down, draw out and cut another section to work with and continue gluing and "painting," where you left off. You can cut pieces as you go, anytime you feel it necessary to maintain the aesthetic, such as, if an area gets too tight to make a loop or curve back around the shape. Then you would do the same as when you come to the end of your section of yarn; glue and continue with the newly cut end.

In the picture above you can see that the shape bottlenecks without enough room to go all the way to the end and back around. When this happen, you can either cut the yarn here, then cut a small piece off and finish the end by spiraling the yarn in. Then continuing one with your new end to finish the rest of the shape, or you can choose to finish the rest of the main shape first, skipping the isolated section till you are done with that. The result is the same. It is a matter of preference in how you want your work to flow.

Note: There will likely be other places in your "painting" that this will occur, and some may require you to just cut off small little snippets to glue in place to fill a narrow gap. As long as you put the cut piece up against the adjoining yarn, it is not noticeable, and it works just fine.

*As you can see above, I pulled out my center piece and replaced it with the orangy-gold color before it set all the way. I forgot I was using it.

By now you probably have the hang of it and maybe even found your grove. Keep at it. The more you work on it the more you will discover what works best for you and what to expect. Starting the next color is exactly the same as what you were doing with the first. Just cut, glue, and "paint."

You are finally done! Now you can peel all that dried glue off your fingers, if you haven't been doing it all along. I am a weirdo. I love peeling dried glue off my skin, so even this part is fun for me.

All that is left it to sit back and admire what YOU made.

Notice in the first picture, you can see some glue smeared on some of the flower and leaves, but in the second, once the whole thing has dried completely, that you can no longer see any of the glue on the yarn. As long as you have a glue that dries clear, it will be the same for you and will not affect your finished piece.

I hope you enjoy this :)