Free Pattern: 4th of July Napkin Rings

Need a last-minute project to spruce up your table for the 4th? Why not stitch up a few of the 4th of July Napkin Rings from Lion Brand? Each one uses tiny bits of yarn (they call for Vanna’s Choice in red, white, blue and silver, but any medium weight in yours stash would do), takes very little time to knit up and includes cute embellishments like stripes, stars and tiny pom-poms.

And of course you could mix them up with other colors, using whatever’s in your stash to make your table a little more colorful. Or stick with red, white and blue and use them for get-togethers all through the summer.

[Photo by Lion Brand.]

Looking for 4th of July decorations? Check these supplies out.

We also have 100’s of 4th of July Patriotic crafts and 4th of July recipes too.

For the past few years I’ve taken part in a Christmas in July blog hop that encourages people to get a jump on their making for holiday gifts.

I love to use yarn I already have for these projects in the hope that people will consider what they already have that they can use to make projects for themselves or to give as gifts.

This year it was a couple of knit baskets made using partial balls of yarn left in my stash from other projects.

They use the same basic pattern but the first one is made with two colors of bulky yarn, and the second used two strands of worsted weight yarn held together, which made the gauge about the same, but I cast on fewer stitches to make a smaller version.

The bottom of the basket is square, though you can make them rectangular if you’d rather. Then I just knit up the sides in rounds until I was about to run out of yarn. This gave both baskets rather short sides — maybe more like a tray than a basket — but you can keep knitting as long as you like to make the sides of your basket as tall as you want.

They’re worked in seed stitch, which keeps the edges from curling and adds a nice texture to the baskets.

Of course this also allows you to use even more odd balls from your stash. I’d love to make a big one someday combining lots of different yarn. I mean, I’d probably use it to store more yarn, but that’s a fine thing to do.

As it is, these little trays are great for sitting on your desk or bedside table to hold little things that always seem to appear there. I like to use one to hold the supplies for whatever project I’m working on, things like little scissors, my tape measure, a crochet hook, etc.

And they would make good gifts on their own or as a container to hold some other goodies if you like.

You can find the free pattern for these stash busting baskets over at Our Daily Craft.

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