Another Great Shawl to Use Your Leftovers

I am always a fan of stash busting projects that allow you to use all the little bits and pieces left from other projects or the balls of yarn you just aren’t sure what to do with. And if you can use a fun technique along the way, so much the better.

ChiWei Ranck’s Natural Bridges Shawl is a pattern like that. It uses a bunch of bits of fingering/sock weight yarn melded together with garter stitch intarsia.

This is a variation of a pattern called Natural Formations, which is a scarf design by Ann-Marie Baker. This design makes a mini triangular shawl, and ChiWei’s design combines two of these little shawls into a bigger project, bridging them together.

You’ll need the original Natural Formations pattern to make this project. It’s available on Ravelry, and the instructions for making the bigger version are available as a free download.

It’s so fun to me to see people take a different spin on a project or technique and make a very different looking project. I love the bigger version but the mini scarf by itself is cute, too. You could make a small one to use in spring and summer and then make a bigger one for colder weather.

Either way, you’ll be able to use lots of leftovers or mini skeins. The original scarf used six minis, and Natural Bridges uses six for each scarf half and six more for the bridge, so 18 mini skeins or leftovers from other projects can be used, which sounds pretty great to me.

I love the scrappy look of this project, and even though the original was planned to use specific mini skeins, it’s a great way to use up bits of stash or those advent calendar minis you never know what to do with. A couple of bold colors thrown in with a more muted palette is a lot of fun, or you could even do it in tonal shades if you have lots of leftovers in similar colors.

[Photo: ChiWei Ranck]

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

Have you read?