Work Your Memories Into a Blanket

I love the idea of thinking of your leftover yarn not as remnants or something wasteful, but as memories of the projects that you made with it. Much like making a patchwork quilt reminds you of all the things you made with that fabric before, knitting a stash busting project with your yarn leftovers can bring to mind each project that came before.

That’s the idea behind Raina K’s Memory Loop Blanket.

It’s worked from the center out in a hexagon shape using brioche knitting. The pattern starts with Emily Ocker’s cast on and includes two color brioche as well as increases and decreases for shaping. It uses an I-cord bind off, which I’m sure takes forever but gives it a lovely finish.

The designer rates it as for an adventurous beginner or intermediate knitting, but having worked two color brioche before would be helpful.

The pattern sections are broken up by “airy interludes” worked in a fuzzier yarn and using the same color throughout.

The original pattern was worked in DK weight yarn with the airy interludes in fingering (which also makes them airy because the gauge is more open since it’s worked with the same needles as the rest of the shawl). You could use all fingering or sport weight if that’s what you have more leftovers of.

Of course in the original the same two colors are used for a full pattern section, but if this is truly a leftovers project you may end up using more colors in each section, which could also be fun. And of course because it’s worked from the center out you can just keep knitting to make it as big as you like and go until you run out of yarn. The designer suggests you might need multiple long circular needles to deal with the number of stitches you’ll end up with.

As shown the blanket is about 43 inches/110 cm in diameter from one corner across to another. It looks super cozy and would be a great use for all those memories you’ve been holding onto!

You can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Raina K]

For the past few years I’ve taken part in a Christmas in July blog hop that encourages people to get a jump on their making for holiday gifts.

I love to use yarn I already have for these projects in the hope that people will consider what they already have that they can use to make projects for themselves or to give as gifts.

This year it was a couple of knit baskets made using partial balls of yarn left in my stash from other projects.

They use the same basic pattern but the first one is made with two colors of bulky yarn, and the second used two strands of worsted weight yarn held together, which made the gauge about the same, but I cast on fewer stitches to make a smaller version.

The bottom of the basket is square, though you can make them rectangular if you’d rather. Then I just knit up the sides in rounds until I was about to run out of yarn. This gave both baskets rather short sides — maybe more like a tray than a basket — but you can keep knitting as long as you like to make the sides of your basket as tall as you want.

They’re worked in seed stitch, which keeps the edges from curling and adds a nice texture to the baskets.

Of course this also allows you to use even more odd balls from your stash. I’d love to make a big one someday combining lots of different yarn. I mean, I’d probably use it to store more yarn, but that’s a fine thing to do.

As it is, these little trays are great for sitting on your desk or bedside table to hold little things that always seem to appear there. I like to use one to hold the supplies for whatever project I’m working on, things like little scissors, my tape measure, a crochet hook, etc.

And they would make good gifts on their own or as a container to hold some other goodies if you like.

You can find the free pattern for these stash busting baskets over at Our Daily Craft.

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