Knit Yourself a Special Little Something

March 11, 2024 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

You know I’m all about finding and sharing patterns that help you use your yarn leftovers. Here’s a sweet little shawl that’s meant to be made with the leftovers from a couple of other projects, as it calls for about half a skein each of two colors of sport weight yarn.

The Garter Smidgen by Fatimah Hinds was designed to be a relaxing knit that’s perfect for using up some leftover yarn. It needs 360 to 400 yards total (or about 329 to 366 meters) and measures 64 inches (162.5 cm) long and 17 inches/43 cm at its widest point. The crescent shape is worked in one piece, with wedges of garter and stockinette stitch broken up by eyelets.

It’s designed to use the amount of yarn you have, whether that’s two partial skeins, some minis or several smaller leftovers (since you can easily make more stripes, or wider stripes, as you like depending on the yarn you have available).

It’s a pretty quick and easy project worked in sport weight yarn, though of course you could use sock, DK or even worsted weight yarn, depending on the nature of your leftovers.

The pattern is available on Ravelry. This is actually the second shawl in the “smidgen” series. Fatimah also has a super cute little sock weight, single-color shawl worked in linen stitch that’s designed to use a single special skein, though here again if you’ve got a smaller skein and some leftovers or mini skeins you could throw in some stripes to make it bigger. (That pattern is also on Ravelry.)

Speaking of mini skeins, if you need even more ideas of what to do with your special little skeins (or lots of yarn leftovers), check out my roundup of mini skein/advent calendar knitting projects. These projects are sure to inspire you to bust your stash in a beautiful way.

[Photo: Fatimah Hinds]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?

Christmas Stocking Knitting Patterns for Your Pets

I’ve shared a lot of Christmas stocking knitting patterns over the years (see posts 1, 2, 3 for example) but what if you want to knit a stocking for a non-human member of your family. If you’re looking for Christmas stocking knitting patterns for your cats or dogs, this is the post for you.

These large paw print stockings are perfect for either dogs or cats, so they’re great to knit if you have both. They are worked in the round using DK weight yarn, and the stocking measures about 17 inches/43 cm from the top to the heel. You can get the pattern from nicolaluke.

The K4 Project has a super cute Kitty Christmas stocking pattern, which is worked in worsted weight yarn. They also have a dog version, or you can buy both and get a discount if you have both dogs and cats to knit for. Both projects have two patterns, showing how to work the stockings flat or in the round.

Put your dog into a Christmas scene with this stocking pattern from ifanhourChild. It shows a dog in a dog house in the snow, and has room for the dog’s name at the top. It’s worked flat using worsted weight yarn and the pattern includes charts for many small and medium dog breeds (there’s a separate listing for bigger dogs) so you can stitch a dog that looks like yours.

Annie’s Woolens has both dog and cat stocking knitting patterns that are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round. You can change up the colors to suit your pet if you want, and they come with an alphabet chart for personalization. Or you can stick with holiday colors and buy a kit to make the dog or cat stocking.

Waiting for Santa Paws is a pattern from Kate Agner on Ravelry that would be cute for a dog or a cat. It looks like a leg with a paw print on the bottom part of the foot and more paw prints running around the top of the leg. This is a great option if you don’t want to mess with a heel turn because it doesn’t have a heel, because dogs and cats don’t have heels so why would their stockings?

Book Review – 20 to Knit: Tiny Christmas Toys to Knit

Book Review – Knit Christmas Stockings

Next Pattern:

Have you read?

Leave a Reply