Written By Emma Hughes
As I have been travelling on the road this past year, my knitting and crocheting hasn’t stopped. But as I finished projects, those little balls of yarn build up. I don’t want to just throw them away, it’s important to me to try and be as zero waste as possible in my crafting and so I’ve been thinking about all the uses for leftover yarn. As I came up with or got inspired with ideas I found on Pinterest, I wanted to compile them and create a blog post series to share with others, who also want to use up their stash as much as possible!
In my last blog post, I talked about things you can do with leftover yarn that aren’t knitting or crochet, you can read about that here. But in this post, I wanted to look at what you could crochet with leftover yarn. This covers projects that only use leftover yarn as well as projects where leftover yarn could be incorporated.
There’s lots of fun to be had here, from using leftover yarn to add some fun, varied colour, to some cute one-off items that could be gifted or displayed in your home.
I hope this post inspires you to reach into your pile of leftovers. Let me know which project appeals the most, or if you have other ideas, share them in the comments below!
Granny squares
If you are new to crochet or want to get into crochet, granny squares are a great place to start! I find them very addictive to make, and as one square can be completed fairly quickly, it’s some good instant gratification.
Working in rounds, you can make them as big or small as you’d like, from one big granny square blanket to lots of small, two-round granny squares that could be joined together for a headband or even incorporated into socks, like this awesome pattern, Grannies-in-a-row socks by Jen Yard.
If you want to make some consistent-looking granny squares, you could pick a base colour to use on the outer rounds of the square and mix it up on the inner rounds.
If you only use scrap yarn for the inner rounds, I find you don’t have to worry too much about using different weights. Remember you can also combine two strands of yarn together to get a heavier weight too. For example, holding two strands of fingering weight yarn together, is roughly equivalent weight to DK yarn.
With my recent batch of granny squares (image below) have been trying to use even the smallest scraps, you’ll see even an individual round has two different yarns in it! I haven’t completely decided what I’m going to do with these granny squares yet, but I have a couple of ideas in mind, so watch this space!
2. Headbands
Another quick project are headbands! There are lots of patterns out there to crochet up a headband. In fact my Lonsdale Toque pattern starts as a headband, before becoming a hat, but you could totally stop at the headband section.
I have also free-styled one before (image below) using up bits of yarn I had left from various projects, to make this fun, retro-style headband.
3. Amigurumi
The Japanese art of crocheting (or knitting) stuffed objects, from animals, plants and cartoon characters. There’s a whole world of amigurumi out there. Often small, there is freedom in the yarn weight and hook size that can be used. You can follow any pattern and do not necessarily need to use the size and yarn weight the pattern specifies, just be aware that the amount of yarn needed, and the size of the finished object would differ from that noted in the pattern if so (but I know you got that figured out already!)
I must note here, I do not crochet much amigurumi, but I am often inspired by the really cute things that people create in this way.
These objects could also be stuffed with leftover yarn too, making them even more effective use of leftover yarn.
4. Coasters
Coasters and cup holders can make great gifts for people. The coasters I’ve made (image above) used a white cotton yarn as a base colour, before using a contrasting colour for the picot edging. Of course, you could use multiple colours for all of it, each round could be a different colour yarn. These also make up really fast so if you’re looking for some last-minute gifts, these would be a great choice!
There are lots of crochet patterns available out there, including free ones, like this from TL Yarn Crafts
5. Christmas (or year around) baubles
I am posting this in July when it is 30C heat outside, but it doesn’t mean it's too early to be thinking about Christmas!
Crochet baubles are another project that I have yet to do myself, but I have seen them a lot on Pinterest. If you search for ‘crochet baubles’ on Pinterest, you’ll see so many pretty, colourful baubles come up. They’re so small, it would be great for leftover yarn. Better yet, you could even use the tiny scraps, or any yarn you definitely don’t want to use for another project, to stuff the baubles with!
I’m saying Christmas baubles, but some of them look so pretty, I think you could hang them around your home any time of year, or play around with colours to make them themed for other holidays of the year.
Let me know your project ideas when crocheting with leftover yarn in the comments below. I would love to know what you turn your scraps into!
Don’t forget to check out my other blog post on this topic: “Things to do with leftover yarn, that aren’t knitting or crochet”.
crochetleftover yarn
Emma Hughes
