Tiny, 3,000 Year Old Ball of Yarn Found

The origins of knitting have always been murky because our raw materials are biodegradable. We know that the oldest piece of knitting that has been found is about 3,000 years old, but its sophistication (a sock with intricate colorwork) indicates that knitting had been around for a while before it was made.

A rare link to the world of ancient fiber arts was recently found in England, when archaeologists at the Must Farm site (which has been compared to Pompeii in terms of the level of preservation in the boggy area) found a 1 centimeter ball of yarn.

“When we first started finding such incredibly preserved textiles it was very difficult to believe it could really be 3,000 years old given how amazing its condition was,” scientists reported on Facebook. “Equally, the quality and fineness of the fibres was just astonishing.”

How cool is that?

[Photo via Must Farm Archaeology.]

For the past few years I’ve taken part in a Christmas in July blog hop that encourages people to get a jump on their making for holiday gifts.

I love to use yarn I already have for these projects in the hope that people will consider what they already have that they can use to make projects for themselves or to give as gifts.

This year it was a couple of knit baskets made using partial balls of yarn left in my stash from other projects.

They use the same basic pattern but the first one is made with two colors of bulky yarn, and the second used two strands of worsted weight yarn held together, which made the gauge about the same, but I cast on fewer stitches to make a smaller version.

The bottom of the basket is square, though you can make them rectangular if you’d rather. Then I just knit up the sides in rounds until I was about to run out of yarn. This gave both baskets rather short sides — maybe more like a tray than a basket — but you can keep knitting as long as you like to make the sides of your basket as tall as you want.

They’re worked in seed stitch, which keeps the edges from curling and adds a nice texture to the baskets.

Of course this also allows you to use even more odd balls from your stash. I’d love to make a big one someday combining lots of different yarn. I mean, I’d probably use it to store more yarn, but that’s a fine thing to do.

As it is, these little trays are great for sitting on your desk or bedside table to hold little things that always seem to appear there. I like to use one to hold the supplies for whatever project I’m working on, things like little scissors, my tape measure, a crochet hook, etc.

And they would make good gifts on their own or as a container to hold some other goodies if you like.

You can find the free pattern for these stash busting baskets over at Our Daily Craft.

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