What to Do With That Leftover Yarn

After making my Zuzu's Petals cowl I had some leftover green yarn.  I really hate leftovers.  My favorite thing is when a knitting project uses absolutely ALL the yarn (o.k. so there are always some little trimmings, but I'm talking all useable yarn.)  Not only was this bright green yarn leftover, but it was some of my handspun yarn too!  What to do?  

Well, we have a "Nature Table" in our house like those used in Waldorf School classrooms to designate the change in seasons.  It's on the top of our little studio piano which belonged to my grandparents who purchased it in 1936.  The piano is the one my dad learned to play on, me and my brother learned to play on and now my son Sam is learning to play on it too.  Usually there is a playsilk laid on top with some wooden figures, nature items that pertain to the season like driftwood, stones, crystals, leaves, flowers etc., craft projects and a seasonal postcard.  I thought maybe I could knit some trees to add to the winter collection.  

After searching on Ravelry for a while and not finding what I envisioned, I found this pattern of gnomes made out of a wine cork.  I thought I could just make the hat portion, knitting it longer, and voila you have the trees I made above. The tree tops are stuffed with wool and simply slipped them over the wine corks (on the smallest tree I cut the cork in half first.) They measure a scant 3 - 5 inches tall and took me all of a hour or so to knit.  What do you think?  I was really pleased with how they turned out and they add a little color to our mostly white winter display.  And color at this time of year in Minnesota is a valuable commodity let me tell you.  What do you do with your leftover yarn?

Joining in with Linda for Creative Friday.

For Kicks and Giggles

Using up every scrap of yarn after I finish a project is a goal of mine.  You've seen what I do with the smallish felt-able bits here and the itty bitty bits here, but what do I do with the 1/2 a skein plus bits?  Well, it depends on the yarn, what I need (or think I need) and what might make a fun gift.  This time around I decided I needed a small bag to carry a sock knitting project with me wherever I go.  Knitting projects tend to get all tangled up in my purse so I thought a separate bag would solve that little problem.  Using the leftovers from my Missing Piece Hobo Bag (yes, it's done and a post will follow as soon as I get pics!) I knitted up this bag from the book Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson.  Here it is:

 

It measures about 8 inches high and 6 inches in diameter.  My modifications were to only do 1 inch before the drawstring holes instead of 3 (since I wanted more bag than collar) and to make the bottom rounded like a hat so it would "sit" nicely next to me.  The original pattern called for a three needle bind off across the bottom making it a flat style bag.  I did decreases just like you'd do for a hat, but with less rows between the decreases and I love the spiral it creates.

The drawstring is a delicate 2 stitch I-cord with wrapped tassels - so fun!

The bag is very roomy with space for a full sock skein, pattern, needles and extras.  The only problem I have with it is that needles poke through the sides thus I will probably be lining this bag with fabric once my sewing machine comes back from the repair shop.  It will lose it's soft drapey quality, but will be more functional.

 

I still have some yarn leftover from making this bag too so stayed tuned for what I did with those little cotton/linen yarn bits.  Anyway, that's my project that was just for "kicks and giggles" this week.  

What do you do for kicks and giggles?

WIP Wednesday - I-Cord Rug

Do you remember this post on what I do with my yarn scraps?  Well, this project has been on hiatus for a while but now I'm back at it.  My intention is to make a rug out of felted I-cords made from all my scrap wool yarn.  All my super wash wool and cotton yarn scraps go to my son Sam for his creations.  Lately, he's making Popsicle stick "God's Eyes" as well as knitting bean bags. I just hate wasting such beautiful yarn you know?  But back to the rug.  Here are a few photographs of my 29 1/2 yards long I-cord wrapped up into a rug shape before felting.

 

 This is the shape I'm going for only a few feet bigger.  Yes, this will be a long term project.

 

 Here's a close up of all the pretty yarns.  I did a 5 stitch I-cord.

Now, I washed the yarn cord in my washing machine with soap (not detergent) and hot water agitating it for 30 minutes then I let it finish the full cycle. Well, it came out of the washer a tangled felted mess!  Ack!  I sat down and untangled it and noticed it felted rather erratically.  Where it was tightly tangled it did not felt well and where it was loose it felted just right.  Should I cry now?  All that time and effort and it looks a wreck.  I could have thrown it back in the washer again, but instead I decided to braid it hoping to even out the thicknesses and here is the result:

 Sorry for the fuzzy pics it's a very gray day today.  It measures about 15 inches in diameter.

 The braiding also evens out the colors giving them a more muted effect.

 I'm relived now that it isn't a total loss, just a different look.  Hopefully I can find a book at the library on how to sew braided rugs together.  Have any of you done that and if so do you have any tips?  But, in the meantime it's back to I-cord knitting my scraps.  60 more yards of cord should make a decent sized throw rug for besides a bed or in front of the kitchen sink.  I'll keep you posted!

What do you do with your yarn leftovers?

Jewelery Kit

  Making things very often means creating waste too, and my work is no exception.  I have a fair amount of yarn and felt scraps from making my wands and crowns.  I came up with this solution for the really small scraps which I discribe in this post, but what to do with the pieces that were too small for my wands, but still usable?  Having time to bring new ideas to fruition does not come my way too often, but I did get a moment this week to finally finish a project that uses those still usable scraps.  What I came up with is a jewelery making kit containing lots of wooden beads and a rainbow of small square felt pieces to be threaded onto hemp string for necklaces and bracelets.

It comes in a natural cotton bag containing 117 unfinished wooden beads of various sizes and styles, 180 pieces of plant dyed felt (20 pieces of each color) and 4 yards of hemp string.  I mention in my shop's listing for this kit that the beads could be colored with markers, painted with watercolor paints or dyed with Easter egg dyes or simply left plain.  My original intention was to plant dye the wooden beads, but I became a little overwhelmed with the process.  I'm still hoping to try plant dying before the summer is over and just focus on 1-3 colors.  Maybe the kits could contain half colored and half plain beads.  What do you think - would this kit be better with colored beads, plain beads or both?  I wanted to keep this item simple as everything else I make is so time consuming and detail oriented, but then maybe that's just my style.  What do you do with your project scraps?

WIP Wednesday - Yarn Scraps

Hello. Do you too have lots of yarn scraps that you just can't seem to throw away? I do. I roll mine up into little teeny balls and put them in a drawer thinking I might use them, someday. Now, one thing you need to know about me is I LOVE to use up yarn, fabric etc. COMPLETELY. Some people enjoy having a bag of scraps around for future projects, but not me. So having this drawer filled with yarn scraps was driving me crazy. Then I came up with this soon to be brilliant idea of making a rug. I thought I could make a cord using all my little bits of yarn, stitch it into a spiral and then felt it in the washing machine.

Here's my cord coming along nicely. I love the rainbow bits the best.

Here's the cord all spiraled up to look like an oval rug.

Kind of like a crazy quilt only in this case a crazy rug. What do you think? Will it work out or be a flop? My guess is it will be good, but will take me a long time to finish as the felting will shrink the rug down quite a lot. I figure I'll just leave the cord on the needles and add to it as I finish my other projects like the pink sweater, felted clogs for me and my mom, socks, socks and more socks oh the list does go on! What's on your needles, hook, sewing machine today?