Stash Busting? Try Knitting a Zero-Waste Shawl

Sometimes when you have a really great ball or two of yarn you really want a pattern where you can use every drop. That’s the idea behind the Zero Waste Shawl, designed by Katarina Linnhagen.

This bias knit, triangular shawl with a sawtooth edge is designed to use up all your little bits, or a set of mini skeins. You can use sport or fingering weight, gradients or more strongly contrasting colors.

From the description it sounds like the key is using wool yarn and felting the ends of each ball together so that you run straight from one color into the next and don’t have to waste yarn or time weaving in ends.

The pattern is free on Ravelry and looks like a great basic you’ll want to wear all the time.

[Photo: Katarina Linnhagen.]

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Many times when I write these posts I will say something like “you can use any yarn you want” or “this would be a great stash-busting project.” That’s just how my mind works. And my stash, too, since I probably have sweater quantity of two or three yarns at most, but tons of singles and odd balls and leftovers.

Blankets are generally a really good way to use up those bits, but in this case, I think you’re going to want to plan it out a bit better.

Looking at photos of the Color Study Blanket from Purl Soho, it looks like it’s made with two yarns held together, and that block in the center is worked with one of each color from the adjoining sides to make a mixed up color.

But that’s not actually how it’s done. This is three separate colors (four, really, with the neutrals in the corners) chosen form a yarn with an expansive palette so they play off each other. The project calls for a worsted weight superwash wool, which is a great choice for a blanket that’s both warm and washable.

This pattern was originally designed by Laura Ferguson and was updated by Hiromi Glover. It is worked in one piece in garter stitch intarsia, which is a great way to learn the intarsia technique if you don’t already know it. It comes in crib or throw sizes.

Despite the introduction to this post, I am going to go ahead and say that, yes, of course you could do this blanket with scraps or odd balls or even just choose five colors that don’t blend together so easily. But I really do love the look of the color play, and I think it would be worth your time to find colors that play well together to get a similar effect.

This pattern is available for free from Purl Soho.

[Photo: Purl Soho]

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