Take Your Scrap Yarn on a Voyage

February 9, 2024 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

If all the writing I’ve been doing over the past few months about using your yarn stash and odd balls hasn’t yet inspired you to take on a stash-busting project, maybe this set of patterns will do it.

I love Wool & Pine Designs because many of their designs are really thoughtful in the way they use stash to make something that doesn’t look like a scrap yarn project.

And so it is with the Voyage set. These coordinating patterns for a cardigan, hat and mittens feature bold bands of colorwork such that each section can be two different colors, or you can go through a rotation through the project if you have more of some colors that you want to use.

To take the patterns one at a time, the cardigan is worked from the bottom up, mostly in the round, using steeks for the center front and sleeves. The sleeves are worked seamlessly from the top down using short row shaping, and are shown in the same color as the edging of the sweater. It has 10 sizes, with chest measurements from 30 to 66 inches (76 to 168 cm) and is meant to be worn with no to 4 inches/10 cm positive ease.

The mittens and hat use the same kind of stitch patterns, and you’ll probably want to make sure you have enough yarn to make your mittens match. Or not, if that’s more your style. The mittens are sized for small, medium and large adults, while the hat comes in sizes from newborn through adult large (eight sizes in all). That’s plenty to go through all your leftover sock yarn, mini skeins, skeins that will never really become socks, and then some!

All of the patterns are available on Ravelry as follows: cardigan | mittens | hat. If you order all three at the same time you’ll get a 20 percent discount.

[Photo: Wool & Pine Designs]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?

Celebrate Color with the Minas Sweater

One of the hardest things about winter for me is the lack of color. It’s like the whole world ran out of toner, and often our clothes reflect the muted landscape outside, which just makes everything more drab.

This year I’m trying to use and wear all the fun colors of yarn I have in my stash, and I think the Minas Sweater from Cecilia Lalanne & Gabriella Calderini for Manos del Uruguay would be a great way to use a lot of colorful yarn on a sweet sweater.

This cropped sweater uses 1×1 stranded colorwork where the colors change as you work the pattern, which makes it look more complex than it is. The project calls for five colors of worsted weight yarn, but you could probably even use more (or use a multicolored yarn as one or some of your options) to bring even more color to the party.

It’s a simple drop shoulder crewneck with straight sleeves, so pretty much all you have to focus on is changing your colors when you need to.

There are seven size options in the pattern, ranging from a bust circumference (on the sweater, not the wearer) from 42.75 to 69.25 inches, or 108.5 to 176 cm. It’s intended to be worn with around 8 inches or 20 cm of positive ease for a casual, oversized look.

You can go bold with the color choices like the sample shown here, or pick a couple of more neutral colors to combine with some brighter shades if that’s more your style. Either way this project should be as easy to knit as it is fun to wear. And of course those bright colors make me think a teenager in your life might love it, but of course there’s no rule that says you have to stop wearing fun colors at a certain age. Thank goodness.

The pattern is free to download from Ravelry and is available in both English and Spanish.

[Photo: Cecilia Lalanne & Gabriella Calderini]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?

Leave a Reply