Wool-ball holder from baby food tin

It's a challenge these days to avoid storage containers for various foods. These days I am using a lot of formula tins or baby food containers - an unavoidable bit for me. The best thing you can do as a conscious user, is to prolong their life by repurposing containers. 

What better than to make it useful for the warm and cozy woollens that you knit or crochet during this winter? I had the advantage of sourcing my mother's old garment embellishing cloth and some old sequins from my stash. And so I got to making a wool holder.

What you need for this project that does not take much of an effort, but yes, you need to load yourself with patience for glue to dry on the container when you wrap it up with a cloth or paper or felt. I chose cloth obviously.

Materials:

-- a piece of old fabric to wrap the container

-- a pair of two of scissors, one definitely to cut cloth

-- a ball of wool

-- either a small pair of scissors or knife to poke a hole on the lid

-- sequins and embellishments such as ribbons, glitter glue, deco tape etc that may come in handy

-- glue gun or craft glue, and decorative thread if you choose

-- sandpaper is useful, but I did not have it, and managed...read on

Start, by applying craft glue to the outer surface of the tin after washing it and drying it thoroughly. Let this dry. This layer will help the fabric stick better. The option otherwise is to sand the surface and roughen it up.

Using a piece of household cardboard, wrap the tin with fabric. My piece of fabric was in perfect size for the tin. Depending on the size that you have, cut it to fit the height of the tin. And glue it up. Towards the end, apply more glue for the fabric ends to stick well. You will notice dark patches because of the glue. Do not fret. It will dry up in due course of time.

You need not wait for it to dry, to fix the sequins. I had embellishments useful for embroidery. And used them up.

It helped that the tin's lid was a beautiful golden hue. And the fabric had a running zari or golden colour in its center.

Leave this to dry. Take the lid, wipe it up and use a small knife or pair of scissors to poke a hole. Make the hole consistent by rotating the sharp end of the knife or scissors.

You can fix the lid on the box or container to check. Bring out the ball of wool and insert it into the lid. You can use more wool balls depending on the size of the container. You will notice smudges in these photographs, where the cloth has been glued. It's a matter of few hours and it dries up. Worry not. The repurposed container for wool is ready.

Go on and crochet your beautiful piece of sweater, or maybe tuck in some twine into the box.


Pictures and content: Radhika M B

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