Four Simple Crochet Tips for Using Your Left-Over Yarn
After you have done a crochet project or two, you will start to have a stash of left-over yarn. It’s unused, perfectly good and you chose it for something. Why throw it away?
There are three good reasons to use your left-over yarn instead of buying new.
First of all, using up left-over yarn saves money. Many people who are interested in crafts also have an interest in frugal living. They are interested in their own financial sustainability and they reduce, reuse and recycle to avoid wasting money. They seek ways to make do or do without. And they are often creative with what they have, putting an item to a different use than intended in order to avoid buying new.
Secondly, using left-over yarn saves the earth’s resources. Natural resources are used in every step of the process from producing the yarn to shipping it to disposing of any unused left-over yarn in a landfill. So, to reduce the cycle of consumption, a good choice is to eliminate waste. Don’t buy more yarn. Use what you have!
My favorite reason is the third. If you use your creativity to use what you have to make what you want, you will have an extraordinary piece that no one else can ever match.
Here are four tips for using up your stash of unused yarn:
1. Sort your yarn by color. Think of different ways to match and coordinate them.
2. Make swatches with what you have to see what yarns are similar weights. Try using two strands of lightweight yarn together and see how it compares to one strand of bulky yarn. See what goes together and see what you can use together.
3. Do a sample piece in which you start with a yarn that has one weight and switch to a yarn with a different weight. Does your invention look great? If not, try a different combination. The best choices for pieces made with yarns of varying weights are pieces for which the size can vary, so try a shrug, poncho or scarf.
4. Make granny squares. These can easily be combined into a vest, blanket or scarf that will be completely unique.
Use your creativity and your left-overs to make something entirely different, and save money and the planet at the same time.
Here are some links to free crochet patterns:
-
Crochet Spot » Blog Archive » Free Crochet Pattern: Fast and Easy … – You don’t need to show off your fancy stitch work when all you need to do is show off the cool yarn it’s made with. So here is a really fast and really easy crochet pattern to use your really cool bulky yarn on! …
-
Inspiring Free Crochet Patterns | Fine Craft Guild .com – This highly recommended easy crochet pattern book almost free… for sale now at Amazon for only 84 cts…. Can’t beat that… Check out the Amazon link as they’ll let you look inside the book before you buy, so you can get really inspired …