Every Last Scrap

Hey folks. It has been ages since I’ve written to you – although you’ve been seeing a steady stream of posts from me on the Dyeapalooza of this spring that I hope you’ve enjoyed, I wrote all those posts back in June, so I’m feeling kinda rusty on writing to you! But I’m glad you’re here. Thanks for reading. No matter who you are or why you are here, I appreciate your spending time on my little corner of the internet.

I have been possessed of an urge lately to use up yarn. When I finish a project, often there are a healthy amount of scraps left. If those scraps go back in my yarn chest, they will most likely stay there until the next time I move, or someone asks for scraps for an art project or something. When it comes to handspun, this is unacceptable, and those remainders will stay in my stash until I die. I dream and dream about leftovers projects to use up these bits, but they almost never come to fruition. (I say almost because there was that one time. Other than that, never.) The best way to use up those scraps is to have a plan in place to use them right away – to say that a project isn’t really finished until that yarn is gone. I more or less managed that with the accessories set that I made to go with Weel Riggit. But… yeah… a rather extreme version of this happened this summer.

I’ve posted before about how MiniMighty and I made these little mug warmers together. By “made them together” I mean that I knitted them, and she contributed maybe twenty stitches total to each one. I didn’t care; I didn’t push her. I was just thrilled that she was interested at all.

But, well, I was so excited that she was interested that I bought her all this yarn… new. Seven colours – six were required to represent all four Hogwarts houses, but I ordered a second blue by mistake. I now had most of seven balls of Patons Astra, a 100% acrylic yarn, that I had a paid for, and should absolutely not go in my stash. That would have made me itch like no yarn ever could.

So, in long consultation with MiniMighty, I made her a sweater. She chose a pullover; we worked together on the arrangement of stripes. I knit a little doll version to test out our colour scheme. And then, over summer vacation, I whipped it up.

And you know what? She actually likes it. It’s very her. It has black; she’s been into black lately. It has those Hudson Bay Company stripes that feel very gender neutral, which is very much her vibe.

But wouldn’t you know it? There was still yarn left. So after we got back from vacation, I added a hat the ensemble.

I doubled down on the HBC stripes, with black shifting to navy for the background. And there was just enough left for a coordinating hat for her little sister. I ran out just shy of the tip of the crown, so it’s a little extra rumpled where I pulled 20 stitches taut with the final tail.

It took some extra work, to be sure. Extra time that I could have spent knitting something else. But you know what? I have two happy children, and NO Patons Astra going into my stash.

Thanks to Mini Mighty for being my inspiration. I will try to get some of those “This is the back” tags so it’s easier for you to not wear your sweater backwards. But who are we kidding? You rock it backwards or forwards.