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Giveaway: Mini Skein Knits

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mini skein knits

Congratulations to Duane!

First off, let me say that June was spectacularly crazy for me, but things will be getting better after this week. So if you’ve won a giveaway and haven’t received your prize yet, or you’re wondering why I haven’t picked a winner in a while, please be patient and I promise I will get caught up very soon. Thanks! You all are the best!

One of the last things I did while I was still working at About Knitting was an article all about mini skeins. These little skeins of yarn include a small yardage but are rather irresistible because they often come in great colors or allow you the chance to sample a little yarn you might not be able to afford in larger quantity.

But the trouble with mini skeins is that you might end up wanting to buy a lot of them and not knowing quite what to do with them. They’re lovely as yarn art, of course, but wouldn’t it be better to use them?

That’s where the book Mini Skein Knits comes in (I reviewed it as part of the article linked above). The book has 25 patterns for accessories and home projects (as well as two lovely striped sweaters) that will help you use up leftover yarn or mini skeins (you can see the projects on Ravelry). It’s a fun and colorful book that’s sure to inspire you to use up your little bits, and I’m giving away a copy this week.

If you’d like a chance to win it, leave a comment on this post by the end of the day Sunday, July 10. I’d love to know if you buy mini skeins or if this is the first you have heard of them. If you do, do you use them?

Thanks for visiting, commenting and sharing, and good luck!

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Comments

  1. I read something about them a while back. Haven’t seen them yet. Am interested in them and will look up more on them now.
    Thanks
    Sandi

  3. Thanks for the giveaway. I have not purchased mini skeins, but have a lot of yarn in my stash that I’m thinking of making into mini skeins by weight.

Have you read?

Easy Knit Baskets to Use All Your Stash

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.