Darn Good Yarn! – Knitting

Imagine a company that takes leftover strands from a viable industry and creates YARN!!!

The company is Darn Good Yarn and I recently acquired a sample of this luscious “left over” stuff. What is the original product? Hand spun fibers made into Saris in Nepal. The “waste” is then spun into yarn and in return, helps to support women and their families who may not have another source of income. Also, since it’s a Fair Trade product, it doesn’t exploit child labor.

I knitted up a little purse/yarn bag with this yarn, and the colors were just gorgeous. There was a little bit of bias as I was knitting and while I was concerned at first, it all blocked out and turned out beautifully.

Go here: www.darngoodyarn.com Nicole of Darn Good Yarn has a blog, and an email newsletter, as well as free patterns to use this yarn. It’s a no-brainer!

Next Pattern:

Using your yarn stash is important to me throughout the year, but as I start to feel the end of the year coming on I get more excited about using things I already have in the house. Maybe that’s because I don’t want to go to a store in the thick of holiday shopping times, or I like the idea of having a little space in my stash when the new year rolls around.

It’s super satisfying to use up all the little odd balls you’ve made over the year (or years), and I have several stash busting blankets I work on when it’s cold and will maybe finish someday.

If you’d like to start a stash busting project that’s perfect for using up odd balls, check out the Soukish pattern from Neisha Abdulla. This pattern is made for fingering weight/sock yarn, and it’s worked in a tube with allover color work.

This is great for a couple of reasons. You don’t really have to weave in your ends when you can hide them in a tube (this is one time you might even get by just tying a knot when you change colors!) and you can change colors whenever you run out of yarn and it will look good.

Of course the pattern is made with blocks where the designer changed colors, but you can change yours more or less often as you need to make it work for your stash. You can use blank charts to design your own color combinations, or even your own stitch patterns if you like. You can also adjust the length of the scarf as needed or turn it into a cowl based on the amount of yarn you have.

This project looks like a lot of fun and would be a great thing to have on hand to stitch up and then to wear during the cold, gloomy months.

You can get a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Neisha Abdulla]

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