I’ve been receiving shade cards from Bendigo Woollen Mills for quite a few years now – since 2006 if the shade cards I’ve collected are any indication. When the new one arrives I can’t bear to throw away the old one, or the shade cards for yarns they stock temporarily once the yarn is discontinued. Those little fringes of yarn are just too pretty. I’ve always wanted to come up with a way to repurpose them, maybe as greeting cards. Well, greeting cards for knitters.

A while ago I gathered them together and found I had enough for larger projects. I could cover a scarf or bag in multicolour fringe. I just needed fabric or a bag to cover, so it went on the craft to-do list.

When I measured how much fringe I could make last week, in preparation for the weekend, I realised I could go even bigger. I could surround a small blanket. Two blankets, even. But if I stuck to the standard shade card where the fringe is all the same width I had enough to go around a meter square.

I bought polar fleece and iron on adhesive tape.

The first task was to iron the tape onto the fringe, on the side attached to the card.

Then cut down the centre of the tape and carefully peel the fringe off the card.

Once I had all the fringe off the cards, I applied the first piece to the blanket, peeling the backing strip off the tape…

… and ironing the edge of the blanket to it.

Then I sewed the fringe to the blanket with a wide, short zig-zag.

But I found this made the edge curl, so I cut it off, and discovered that the removed fringe straightened out. So I attached the rest of the fringe to an off-cut of polar fleece instead, which I cut off…

… then sewed this to the blanket with a longer wide zig-zag.

I’m really happy with how it came out.

Hopefully the adhesive and two runs of zig-zag is enough to keep the fringe in place. It seems well attached, though I haven’t tried giving it a good yank.

I have some fringe left, and plenty more shade cards, so maybe a shade card scarf will go on the next craft to-do list.