KnitBits: Yarn Bombing, Using Scraps and Adorable Ducklings

If you’ve been around the knitting world long, you’ve probably heard the name Magda Sayeg, and if you haven’t, you’ve probably seen some of her work. She’s the person who made yarnbombing into a thing, and is known for her large-scale knit and crochet coverings from city buses, motorcycles and more. She gave a TED talk about how she got started in yarnbombing, the power of putting down your cell phone and making something, and the notion that “hidden power can be found in the most unassuming places.” It’s worth five minutes to watch.

We all have yarn scraps if our stashes, and it’s a great feeling to use up all those little bits. Yarnbombing is one way to do it, but there are lots of others that may or may not include knitting or crochet. This is an old list of 50 projects to make with yarn scraps, but it turned up on Facebook again recently and is definitely worth revisiting. I still want to wrap my office clock in yarn.

If you have any brown scrap yarn in your stash, you can knit yourself a bunch of Hot Cross Buns for Easter. This pattern from My Poppet is super easy and cute, and I missed putting it in my Easter knitting roundup the other day so I wanted to make sure you saw it.

And finally, the Boston Globe reports that the ducks in the Public Garden have been yarnbombed in the most adorable way. The ducks, which honor the story Make Way for Ducklings, have been decked out in tiny scarves and hats thanks to knitwear company STIK (aka S**t That I Knit). Make way for cuteness!

[Photo from STIK, via Instagram.]

Looking for more Easter themed Knitting patterns? Check out these Knitting patterns we found over on Etsy.

Any time of year is a good time for stash busting, but if you can combine it with knitting a blanket that will keep you warm when it (finally!) gets cooler that’s even better. Let’s take a look at some fun patchwork blanket knitting patterns.

If you want to keep it super simple, you can just make blocks of garter stitch and sew them together, like the beginner’s patchwork baby blanket from Mini Baa Baa or the color block blanket from Make and Do Crew. Both projects are worked in strips and sew together, with the baby version calling for two strands of DK or light worsted weight yarn held together and the larger one using bulky yarn.

Add a little more texture with the mixed blocks of the cottage quilt throw from Mama in a Stitch. This one combines garter stitch and seed stitch and uses worsted weight yarn. She used a crochet join to make the chains on top of the blocks, but you can join them however you like. It calls for eight colors but you can use what you have, and there are three size options.

Get a real sampler style patchwork blanket with this design from Knit Sew Make. It calls for worsted weight yarn and has four size options. All of the patterns just use knit and purl stitches so this one is still pretty easy for beginners.

If you want a more complex colorwork project that will keep you entertained all season, try the Peace by Piece blanket pattern from Needle and Feather. This one is made up of two color colorwork blocks and calls for worsted weight yarn. You can choose to use just a few of the blocks and repeat them more often, or make multiples of the whole set.

The knitted patchwork recipe from Martine Ellis (free on Ravelry) uses mitered squares in fingering weight yarn, so it’s perfect for using up all your leftover sock yarn and mini skeins. This one is a tutorial more than a pattern so you can make your blanket as big as you like or keep going until you run out of yarn.

Susan B. Anderson’s 100 Squares blanket (find it on Ravelry) has a lot of mitered squares, too, but they’re arranged in fun ways and includes some quilt inspired designs as well. This one also is a bit of method more than pattern but it sure looks like a lot of fun for using all the leftovers.

Of course you can totally improvise a patchwork blanket using the yarn and stitches you like, but I hope these patterns inspire you to look at your leftover yarn in a new way.

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