I know its not quite that simple, I’d have to make thread first, and after I get enough, make clothing out of it. Could this actually be done? I can sew, but never made my own clothing nor have I ever made thread, so I don’t know if it could actually be done or not. I’m 100% sure the time and effort would not be worth it, or money spent on stuff to produce the thread, etc. But looking at my lint garbage pale made me wonder.
You can’t spin thread from it since the fibers are too short.
But you can use lint for felting.
As someone who spins and felts, the fibers in lint are too short for felting too. Both spinning and felting require the fibers be long enough to tangle and lint is the broken pieces of fibers that have fallen out of threads already. You can get it to stick together like felt but it won’t ever be sturdy like a felt because the fibers can’t get wrapped around one another or tangled up. Like trying to give dreadlocks to a guy with a buzz cut.
Some people use dryer felt to add color to felted things they have made but I think of lint like the crumbs at the bottom of the cereal box or chip bag.
Ever rolled lint in your hands and then it shrinks and gets denser? It’s kind of like that just more controlled. You’re tying a bunch of tiny knots in the fibers and letting friction keep it in place
Interesting. I once came close to renting a house from a felter, but that’s the closest I’ve come to the process.
One use for lint is as a fire starter.
You can just use it as is and light it and it works great.
Or you can soak the lint with Vaseline, then store a small bunch of it into a sandwich Ziploc bag and keep it for emergencies or camping.
Because it’s so good as a fire starter … always check your dryer for excessive accumulation.
Shout-out to the GM of the Aaron’s calling me an idiot that doesn’t know how to operate a dryer when they sold me one out the door so clogged I’m amazed my house didn’t light on fire. Swore up and down they quality checked everything, the 2 hours I spent with that machine open scraping the lint out suggests otherwise.
Yes, I’m still salty about it over a year later.
Started 3 fires in the last week with lint. Great stuff if your kindling is dry. For wet stuff I use homemade napalm (old unleaded + styrofoam).
There are some really good flint and steel survival rods available now. Not the flimsy Scouting ones of yesteryear, but ones with anodized aluminum housings, hardened metal strikers and large diameter flint rods.
Started our winter stove with it the other day and am really happy with it.
The one I have, from a survival perspective, is a little risky, because when configuring them for use they must be taken down into multiple parts, but damn if it doesn’t make huge sparks.
Lint is made of very short fibers. Yarn is held together by friction and tangling between the fibers; if they’re too short, it won’t hold together. So if you tried to spin lint into a yarn, it would probably just break apart.
Lint makes a great firestarter
The fibers are too short, but you could probably make a neat paper out of it.
