If you’re anything like most knitters, you’ll have a cupboard, box or large bag somewhere in the house which is overflowing with odds and ends of yarn from previous projects which are cluttering the place up and which you never really get around to using. So what sort of thing can you make with scraps? Guest author Morag Peers has a few suggestions!
Premature Baby Items
Up and down the country, maternity hospitals have a constant need for tiny little hats, scratch mitts, cardigans and blankets for babies who arrive prematurely. Often the parents have not had time to shop for their baby, and even if they have, it is difficult to find such small items. Premature babies need to be kept warm, so knitted items are ideal. It takes very little yarn to make a pair of bootees or mitts, and any colour of yarn is suitable. Striped blankets are a great way of using up odd balls or part balls and will add a splash of colour to the sterile hospital environment.
Scarves
One really easy way of using up your scraps is to knit a multi-coloured scarf. Cast on around 300 stitches and just knit in garter stitch, changing your colour at the end of each row. Leave the ends long and these will make the fringes for your finished scarf. How you arrange your colours depends on personal taste, so you can either go for a completely random approach or plan out the changes for a rainbow effect. If you’re planning on washing your scarf, stick to the same sort of yarn – if you incorporate some pure merino yarn into a scarf which is mostly acrylic, when you throw it in the machine it is likely to come out mangled and partially shrunk.
Blankets
Granny square style blankets have become very fashionable in recent years and if you’re an adept crocheter, you’re probably already using up your scrap wool this way. If you can’t crochet, you can still make blankets using small quantities of yarn. Either knit small squares which can later be stitched together to make a larger blanket, or just use stripes, changing colour every time you run out of a particular yarn.
Accessories
If blankets, scarves or baby clothes don’t appeal, consider making little accessories which you can use yourself or give away as gifts. There are plenty of patterns online for things like mobile phone cases, corsages, knitted jewellery or wrist warmers, and the beauty of these things is that they can be completed in just a few hours of knitting. Again, it is best to stick to just one sort of yarn when making these projects. Use merino yarn for the wrist warmers or hats and keep the cheaper acrylic yarn for mobile phone holders or children’s items. Once you get proficient at knitting smaller items, you could even consider selling at craft fairs or setting up as a trader on Ebay or crafty websites and making a few extra pounds out of all those little scraps of knitting yarn.
Morag Peers is a keen knitter and guest author writing for Yarnfest. Yarnfest sell patterns and yarn online including wonderful products such as King Cole aran, just one of a number of yarns which would be perfectly suited to the knitting ideas mentioned above.
Images: Photograph of Baby Boots by normanack on Flickr and Photograph of Scarf by lisaclarke on Flickr, both used under the Creative Commons License.
