Knit a Super Simple Vest

I love a project that’s great for beginners but also gives people who might have more projects under their belts (read: more stash) to use what they have in a fun and creative way.

The Bernat Beginner Change Your Stripes Knit Vest is a super simple, boxy, garter stitch vest worked in stripes of different colors. As shown it uses four colors, but I will never stop saying you can use as many colors as you like on a project like this. This might be a great time to pull out a magic ball and use all the little random bits you have in your stash. (It calls for super bulky yarn but you could also mix it up by holding two strands of worsted weight together to use even more stash.)

As written you change colors after two rows, which makes sense because that gives you one garter ridge, so if you wanted to keep the look more uniform you could choose odd balls where you have enough to knit at least two rows (or four rows if you want the front and back to match).

This piece is literally just rectangles finished with a bit of garter stitch to form the armholes and then sewn together.

And while this would be a super fast stash buster if you’re the sort of knitter who needs such a thing, this pattern is perfect for beginners, too, because it has tons of pictures to help you figure out how to change colors and manage your yarn without cutting it every two rows. (This is actually a super helpful thing to know and past me would have loved that knowledge when I knit a baby blanket with tons of color changes and cut the yarn each time.)

Grab the free pattern and any supplies you might need from Yarnspirations.

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

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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