Cute Things to Do with Little Bits of Yarn

I spent my crafty time today mostly crocheting, and it occurred to me once again that crochet is the yarn craft you want to be doing if you’re just looking to stash bust. I made a little bowl and a washcloth in the span of an afternoon and evening, and there’s no way I’d have gotten both done if either of them had been knit.

The point is there are a lot of things you can do aside from knitting if you’re looking to pare down your stash, particularly the little bits and pieces left over from projects gone by. Buzzfeed has collected 34 things you can do with little bits of yarn, and while some of them are knit (a little bookmark or knit greeting cards, for instance) there are a lot of different ideas, too, like using yarn for printing or stamping, crocheting Christmas ornaments or earrings, and, of course, making pompoms.

What’s your favorite way to use up little bits of yarn? I’d love to hear your ideas.

[Photo from Easy Makes Me Happy, via Buzzfeed.]

Next Pattern:

As I write this, it’s probably time to start thinking about winter knitting if you haven’t already. And it’s definitely time to think about gift knitting if you have any of that you plan to do for the holidays.

The Dreamy Waves Scarf from Knit Picks, designed by Stacey Winklepleck, would be a great project to go in either category.

It uses two different multicolored yarns and a simple repeating wave pattern to make a project that looks a lot more complicated and dramatic than it is. The gradient look happens naturally just by switching which yarn you’re knitting with.

This pattern uses worsted weight yarn so it’s a pretty quick project even though a scarf is large and this one is pretty wide. It measures 8.5 inches (21.5 cm) wide and 63 inches or 120 cm long. Of course you can make it longer or shorter as you like. As written it takes one ball of each color so it’s a pretty economical project, too.

It’s rated for intermediate knitters but if you know how to do various increases and decreases you’ll be all set. The pattern uses knit 2 together, make 1 left and right, centered double decrease and slip slip knit. All of the stitches are explained in a glossary in the pattern so even if you haven’t done all of them it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.

The pattern also includes tons of options for different colorways in yarn that Knit Picks sells, so you can see how different combinations knit up before you buy the yarn. That’s such a great idea!

Of course if you already have two multicolored yarns with long color runs on hand, you can absolutely use them, too. It might also be fun, but would give you a totally different look, to use a solid color and a bunch of scraps or one multicolored yarn to see how the different colors play together. So many options!

You can grab this free pattern and check out all the color options at Knit Picks.

[Photo: Knit Picks]

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