Use Your Scraps to Make a Little Leftovers Cowl

This time of year I feel like everyone is thinking about using their stash and odd balls from leftover projects. Maybe it’s just me, currently knitting a sweater (that might end up being a sweater dress!) from a bunch of leftover bits of blue and green yarn.

If you’ve got a bunch of light fingering weight yarn hanging around (whether leftovers or mini skeins), you can use them in the Little Leftovers shawl cowl from Stephanie Lotven.

This top down, circular knit cowl includes 25 sections, so you can use all different colors or make up your own stripe pattern. It ends with a triangular piece that’s worked flat so it looks like a shawl but is so much easier to wear. You’ll do a bit of lace, some slipped stitches and other easy techniques.

The pattern includes a coloring sheet so you can plan your colors if you want. You can get the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Stephanie Lotven.]

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I’ve been enjoying knit amigurumi animal patterns lately (see also: this adorable knit pigeon) and of course being a knitter I love llamas.

So when I saw this little llama pattern I knew I had to share it.

The appropriately named Llama patter from Annie Ahn calls for fingering weight yarn, and it uses two colors for the body and three for the little blanket. The pompom can be made to match or in another color. All of these parts take tiny amounts of yarn so you can use whatever scraps you have left over from socks or other projects and change colors whenever you need to.

It might also be fun to use some mohair or other fuzzy or textured yarn on this one to give your llama a different look. In all the project uses between 100 and 150 yards, or 91-137 m, of yarn and the llama comes out about 10 cm/4 inches tall.

The body of the llama is worked in one piece, so this project is suited to intermediate knitters or those who have comfort working in the round and with all those little pieces.

This one is made to be small so you can carry it around with you (it would be super cute on a keychain or as a zipper pull) but I think it would be a lot of fun to knit this in larger yarn, too, to make a bigger llama. You could even make a whole family in different sizes just by using different weights of yarn and corresponding needles.

The details are so cute, from the shaggy hair to its little accessories, but you could make it plain or change it up by knitting a tiny scarf or even working a little fair isle pattern on the legs or body. So many fun possibilities!

The pattern is available on Ravelry in English and Korean.

[Photo: Annie Ahn]

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