Use All Your Scraps to Knit a Great Shawl

Do you spring clean your yarn stash? The slightly warmer weather has me wanting to go through every scrap and use some of those little odd balls that have been lingering for a long time but I just can’t bear to part with.

The Scrappy Bias Shawl from Emily Clawson might be just the thing to get all of us to bust our oddball stash.

It’s a Garter Stitch shawl worked on the bias (so you increase on one side and decrease on the other, super simple) and was designed with mini skeins in mind, but even if you don’t have a store of those wee skeins you can use whatever little bits you have lying around.

I seriously want to make one of these right now.

What do you think? How do you like to use your odd balls?

[Photo Emily Clawson, via Ravelry.]

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Looking for more amazing shawl patterns? Check out these Knitting patterns we found on Etsy.

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

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