Green Caterpillars and Bramble Stripes

When I was younger, cotton reels were wooden, and there were lots of crafts to use these.  I remember one was collecting quite a few, painting them green, threading some elastic through the middle and turning them into a snake or a caterpillar.

Another was to make a 'knitting nancy' - remember these.  What a slow way to make an iCord.

Source

Fast forward a few years, I am now an adult, but where are all those lovely wooden cotton reels for me to make into something else?  Yep, replaced by cheap plastic ones.  Argh.  What is a girl to do?  And then I saw a project (I'm really sorry, I can't remember where I saw this first), and this is what my empty plastic cotton reels look like now:

Pretty cute right?  Little scraps of some of my favourite fabrics, wrapped round and glued down.  They reside in glass jar in my sewing room looking very cheery.  I made two or three and I was hooked, so I went through my hoard of threads, got rid of those last few yards that I would never use, and now I have quite a few.  I thought it would be fun to use fabric in the same (or similar) of the thread that was on the reel.  Just because!

So there you have it, not quite green caterpillars or 'knitting nancy's', but I rather like them!  And, a few less items in the landfill!

Oh, and I'll just let you see some more socks that I have just finished.  I love purples and greens, so this Patons Kroy in Bramble Stripes is pretty much perfection!  More details on my Ravelry page.