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Bust Through Your Stash with a Garter Stitch Blanket

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garter stitch afghanConfession time: my stash is starting to make me a little nervous. I have book leftovers, yarns I bought, things people have sent me to review, little bits of balls from projects I’ve finished and big projects I stopped in the middle.

Something needs to be done.

I have plans for some of this stuff; some will get used, some given away, maybe even a little sold. If you’re looking for a way to use a bunch of yarn (somewhat) quickly, check out the Color Blocked Afghan from Smiling Colors. More of a method than a pattern, she used two strands of yarn held together and changed colors five times across the length of the blanket.

You could also hold two different colors together, or have one strand the same color throughout and change the other one as needed.

Holding two strands together like that both makes it go faster and makes it go through yarn faster, both of which are great when you’re trying to process some stash.

What are some of your favorite stash busting projects? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo via Smiling Colors.]

Comments

  1. The end result would be much appreciated by the homeless. Friend pays a huge amount of postage to ship hers from the UK to Africa. My knitting group prefers not to pay that, we’re retirees, some on small incomes. I intend no criticism of anyone,it’s a free country for anyone to do what they like with their charity makes. but by phoning around locally, we’ve found 2 homeless hostels who welcome our stash-busting blankets.

Have you read?

Classic Dishcloth Knitting Patterns

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.