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]

Next Pattern:

This swirly square stitch knitting pattern from Studio Knit is a lot of fun, and it looks kind of complicated without being difficult at all.

The swirly nature of the block comes from regularly placed increases, as the pattern is worked in rounds from the center out. Switching between sections of all knit stitches and all purl stitches (which gives you stockinette and reverse stockinette respectively when worked in the round) adds to the off-kilter flair but makes it really easy to knit.

You can work it in a single color or change colors regularly. This isn’t really a change colors randomly kind of pattern just because it looks better if you work a full repeat in a single color, but you know there are no rules so you can do whatever you want.

You can also make it any size you like, and indeed use any yarn you want. This one is blanket sized and used five colors of worsted weight yarn, but you can use any yarn and corresponding needles (you’ll need double pointed needles and circulars of various lengths, depending on how big you want to make your square).

For a start, why not grab some cotton yarn and stitch up a swirly washcloth? You could still use a couple of colors if you want, jsut for fun.

Once you try that, you’ll probably want to make a bigger version, and you could definitely use more colors than Kristen did (or just one color if you prefer), you just need to make sure you change colors at the beginning of the pattern repeat to keep everything looking good.

If you’re ready to start (and I know I am!) you can grab the free pattern and check out a video to help you get started at Studio Knit.

[Photo: Studio Knit]

Next Pattern:

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