If you are like many crafters, you have scrap and bits of yarn from projects left over. Sometimes you can put them together and make something wonderful or you may use them to finish off a row when you need just a few yards more.
To use up some of the spare bits of yarn, you can make a scrapghan, a mystery ball or just use it for decoration.
I’ve used all of these methods and the easiest is to use the yarn for decoration in a large bowl. Then, if I’m using a non-dye lotted yarn from a big name manufacturer and need a little extra to finish a project I will go to the bowl and find something. This works well, especially when I have just a few stitches to go and not enough yarn.
The most interesting way to use up scrap yarn is to make a mystery ball and just join the yarns as you go. I prefer to use the Russian Join to connect the odd balls into a large ball of yarn. This is a lengthy and somewhat tedious process, which is why I have been putting it off. That’s time I could spend crocheting.
The bowl in these photos has a variety of scraps that I’ve been saving for (and putting off making) a mystery ball. When I make mystery balls I like to coordinate the colors. So if there are three scraps joined together, the colors before and after each section would match or coordinate. Painstaking process, but beautiful result. But as I was passing by the bowl today, I saw some yarn that I could add to an afghan in progress.
If I keep doing this, then my odd ball bowl will soon be depleted. Or at least below the amount that I need for an afghan’s worth of mystery balls. [Double stranded with a neutral color like black or gray.]
 I have started making a mystery ball and joining the scraps as I go. It may take me a couple of years to have enough or I may just have enough to make a fancy center of a huge granny square afghan or, a bold border for a solid black afghan. Or maybe a bold section or a row or two in the same color family.
I like things to coordinate and I don’t like to waste yarn, but I don’t want to just throw yarn together, but isn’t that what some of the color changing yarns do? Hmmm… Maybe I’m over thinking this.
How do you use up your scraps?
Previous mystery ball
