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Great Books for Stash-Busting

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stash bustingI have offered you a lot of great ideas this month on how to use bits of stash, big and small. But if you need even more ideas, you might want to check out a book or two on stash busting or one skein projects to get you even more inspired.

It happens that Knit Picks was thinking small, too, because it just released the Under 100 Knit Collection (there’s a crochet version, too, but we get a lot more patterns), full of 30 patterns for knit accessories like hats, socks, scarves, boot cuffs, bags and shawls, all of which use 100 grams or fewer of yarn and many of which have stash busting in mind because they’re worked with stripes of colorwork patterns.

Stashbuster Knits by Melissa Leapman is another great one. I’ve even kind of forgiven her for beating me to it (I’ve had notes for a similar book in my pile of stuff that never gets done since before her book was published). It includes 21 patterns organized by yarn weight so you can find ideas based on what you have a lot of in your stash.

One skein pattern books are also great to look at if you have a lot of single skeins or want to combine some of your little balls in a project. I particularly like One-Skein Wonders edited by Judith Durant (as well as Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders for those super-special balls) and One Skein by Leigh Radford. All are nice collections with a lot of variety that are sure to inspire you to work through some yarn.

Do you have a favorite one-skein or stash-busting book? I’d love to hear about it!

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Knit a Linen Stitch Hot Pad

Linen stitch is one of my favorite knitting stitch patterns that, every time I use it in a project, I think about how I don’t use it often enough. 

It’s an easy stitch to make, with slip stitches done with the yarn held to the front of the work on the right/front side and to the back on the wrong/back side, which makes the strand of yarn a visible part of the pattern. 

It also makes a fabric that is thick and looks kind of like a woven fabric.

I recently used linen stitch to make a double-thick pot holder, which I worked in a kind of interesting way. I didn’t want to have to do any sewing on the project, so I started it from a crochet cast on and picked up stitches from the side of the cast on to make the hot pad all in one piece in the round with the edge sealed. 

This requires working on two circular needles, which is another technique I don’t use that often and am always reminded how much I like it when I do. 

The combination of double thickness and the stitch pattern makes for a hot pad that’s already pretty thick, but I also added a bit of old towel to the inside before I closed up the end to make it super thick and extra protective for your surfaces. 

I found the engineering challenge of this construction method to be a lot of fun, but you could also just knit it as a tube (casting on twice as many stitches as I did) and sew up the ends by hand when the knitting is done. Either way you’ve got a useful and pretty addition to your kitchen, whether you work it in a solid color, stripes or as a stash busting project will all your cotton odd balls. 

You can grab the pattern over at Our Daily Craft, or check it out on Ravelry. 

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