Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

What Are Yarn Bowls for, and How to Make Your Own

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polymer clay yarn bowlI’ve been seeing a lot of things about yarn bowls lately. These bowls, which are often ceramic but can be made DIY style out of just about any material that’s a bowl, are a way to hold you yarn while you work.

The benefits of using a yarn bowl, according to this post from My Poppet, include keeping your yarn ball from getting away from you as you knit. They also keep dust, pet hair or whatever else might be on your knitting surface from getting into you yarn, and they can be really pretty, too.

She offers some great tips for choosing a yarn bowl, noting that they should be heavy enough not to tip over, have a guide for the yarn so that it can be removed without cutting (instead of just a hole in the side of the bowl) and it needs to be made out of material that won’t snag the yarn.

You can buy yarn bowls on etsy or from local artists who make them, and there are lots of ways to hack a yarn bowl, from putting a binder clip on the side of a regular bowl (again not ideal because you can’t get the yarn out of the clip without cutting it, but at least you can take the clip off the bowl if you need to get your project away from the bowl) to this fun one shared by Shelli over at the Crochet site recently. Off the Hook for You used polymer clay to make a yarn bowl, which is an amazing, fun looking project that the kids can help out with, too.

Have you ever used a yarn bowl? Do you like it? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Comments

  1. Why can’t you get the yarn out of a binder clip without cutting it? If you feed yarn through the metal arms of the clip, you can remove the arms from the body (by squeezing them together) to remove the yarn. Am I missing something?

  3. I think the wool is to be threaded through the metal loops of the clip rather than the actual part that clips onto the bowl

  4. Regina, Lindsey and Alix,

    Yes! You just squeeze together the silver arms part of the clip and you can remove it from the black part that it clamped to the bowl.

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Pencil Knitting Patterns

Getting ready for back to school makes me think about pencil crafts, so let’s take a look at some pencil themed knitting patterns! 

I recently made a pencil on a circular knitting machine, and it was a fun, quick, easy project that uses little bits of leftover yarn (and if you don’t have yellow you can make it a colored pencil using whatever color’s your favorite). And if you want to make a bigger version check out this pattern from Orange Olive Road on Etsy.

If you want to knit a pencil pillow by hand, check out Sketchy, available on Ravelry from Shana S. Cohen. This one uses worsted weight yarn and has two size options and the choice to make a pencil with an eraser or a colored pencil. 

Pencil scarves seem to be the most popular kind of pencil knitting pattern, and there are lot of cute ones. This one from Cosy Craft UK mostly uses garter stitch, with some welts to add texture and what looks like an I-cord edging. It calls for DK weight yarn. 

If you want to go all garter stitch try this version from Emsley Co Creations, which uses five colors of DK weight yarn and just a little shaping to make the point of the pencil.

There’s also this fun, mostly stockinette so it looks like it curls a bit, pencil pattern that looks like it’s worked in chunky yarn from Little Knits Studio. This one uses just a little garter stitch and easy shaping for the point. 

If you don’t want a pencil scarf, how about some pencil socks? The No. 2 Pencil Socks from The Yarn Enabler are available from Ravelry and use five colors of sock yarn. They feature wide ribs to mimic the texture of a pencil and have options to be worked from the top down or the toe up. 

Needs Sharpening by Alexander Walker is a free pattern on Ravelry that uses five colors of sock yarn to make a sort of shortie sock. The little bit of black at the tips of the toes inspired the name. These, too, can be worked in either direction and are available in three sizes.