Stash-busting

What joy can compare to using up left-over yarn, or stuff you bought because it was on sale/looked nice/called to some yarn-obsessed part of your soul/wanted to support your Local Yarn Store (LYS)? OK, family, friends, professional success - I grant you these things have their pleasures, but I am here to extol the joys of turning left-over stuff that's clogging up your house into wonderful hand-crafted items of beauty. Some of them could even serve as Christmas presents.

Case in point: there was quite a lot of lovely wool/silk mix yarn left over from a seriously cabled sweater I designed a year or two back. There was also a pattern for a hat I wanted to try using that weight of yarn. Next thing you know I had my first Utopia hat done. (I say first because they're so much fun I am already on my third and am looking at more stuff designed by the wonderful Smariek.)




Another case: I wanted to make a lace hat and saw someone wearing a very nice one. Despite stalking following her as she walked from the train to the car park I couldn't be sure whether or not it was machine-made and felt impelled to look at patterns on ravelry as soon as I could get to a computer. Having found something along the right lines I cast on using left-over Rowan Cashcotton from the Après Surf Hoodie. Not many days later I had a nice, if not very stretchy hat, although it made it over the medicine ball I use to model hats, so it's at least big enough for even a pretty large head. (It wasn't quite the pattern I'd seen on the train though, so the search continues ...)