Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Handpun Yarn From……

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Recycled Newspapers? Why not? We spin anything from anything, but this is truly unique. Apparantly, this person can get about 20 yds of yarn from a sheet of newspaper. You can read the article here:

http://greenupgrader.com/2138/handspun-recycled-newspaper-yarn/

She includes pictures (I’m assuming it’s a she, pretty sexist of me isn’t it?), and a tutorial. It’s cool! While not something I’m likely to try, it’s still worthy of mention.

Even if you choose not to recycle your nepapers in this way, please at least recycle them. You can make little pots to start plants in, or you can take them to the recycling center.

Ok, now I’m going to take you all the way from recycling newspaper into the modern technology age with a free felted “Pear” laptop bag. Don’t miss the irony of the choice of fruit on this bag. It’s from Classic Elite Yarns, and really cute! The designer is Pam Allen. You can see more Pam Allen designs on Ravelry. Since I’ll be getting a new laptop myself after the Christmas holiday, this one’s definitely on my to-do list!

http://www.classiceliteyarns.com/pdf/PearBag.pdf

Comments

  1. I can’t believe how amazing the paper yarn is and I am impressed by the person that thought this up. The pear bag is awesome too and I may have to still it for the felting area.

Have you read?

Classic Dishcloth Knitting Patterns

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use. 

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make. 

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!). 

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn. 

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart. 

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern. 

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.