For me, one way of using up leftover yarn is to make oddball hats.
There is never the right amount of yarn for a project. When you buy something just as when you guy a carton of eggs and only need 3 for a recipe, you will have some left over. Depending on the style of the hats and scarf I make, there may be yarn left over. Knowing this, I purposely set aside the yarn that I have just to make some hats to donate to an organization. Some hats can be made with less than 150 yards of yarn while others are quite thirsty and require 200 yards or more. A good rule of thumb is to have about 200 yards of yarn to make a hat. A crochet swirl hat or a half double beanie (or toque) won’t take as much as a hat with front/back post ribbing or cables.
As I complete some sets, I put the remaining yarn into a bag. Since I’m beyond the halfway point of 100 sets and it’s May, I’m taking a few days to just make hats. Even after making a couple of hats, I have some yarn left and will combine those with gray or brown and use the them to make hats with accents. If you haven’t figured this out yet, I don’t like to waste yarn. When it gets to a very small amount <5 yards, I add it to a mystery ball.
Making hats with a limited about of yarn is fun because there are constraints… almost like yarn chicken in every hat. Ok, not really. I save the bands for yarn and some will give a yardage. If I have unused full balls, or I can rewind the partially used ones to give me a better estimate of how much I have. I could weigh the yarn to get an idea of how much I have. That’s more accurate, but not as much fun. Instead, I reach into one of the bags and see how much I have, then go through the hat patterns that I have committed to memory and begin.
I’m impressed with the end results – warm hats.
There’s still a bit of yarn left in the bag and hopefully I’ll make a dent in the bag once I make 10 hats or so. Then I’ll go back to making sets and continue to add to the bag. It’s an ongoing cycle. Unless I put the remainder back into my working stash because I bought a large quantity on sale and will use it later. There’s always a plan, even if I don’t know what it is when I begin. That’s the creative part.
Happy crocheting!
A few YouTube videos have been dedicated to Kraemer Yarns’ Mystery Boxes. When I found out about this wonder last year (2021), I was unable to get in on the action. I had forgotten about it until I saw a new crop of videos this year and was able to score one of the smaller boxes before they sold out. For less than $60 including shipping I received a variety of colors and weights of yarn that I can use for myself and gifts. Plus, some is natural and that I can dye. Kraemer’s yarns are mostly wool, which is why I wouldn’t use all of the yarns for my general donation projects, as some groups specifically request machine washable items. The amount of yarn that is in the box is a great deal, if you aren’t picky about weights or colors. Even as a kid, I always loved a good mystery box so that is why I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.
Yarn mystery boxes are more appealing than yarn subscriptions, to me. In the case of Kraemer and other mystery boxes that I have purchased in the past, there has been enough to make an item, that I can make for myself or as a gift If there’s at least enough to make a hat or mittens, I’m satisfied. Anyone who is familiar with mill end yarns or unbanded yarns would be comfortable with this mystery box.
I have a few projects already in progress, but did decide to dip into the yarn that I received. There were two small squishy skeins of a lilac that is similar to a lighter weight Lion Brand Homespun or Red Heart’s [discontinued] Baby Clouds. While I was never a big fan of homespun because of it’s bulk and difficulty to fix any mistakes frogging, the yarn that I tried from the mystery box glides over the hook and doesn’t snag when unraveling. Bonus so far! Kraemer box came with some bulky yarn on cones which I can use for solo hats. Not everything is wool, there are some blends that look similar to ones on their site that are machine wash/dry, so I will give them a whirl soon. All of the yarns are unbanded so it’s a guessing game to figure out what they are (if the yarns are still available on their site). Still, I’m happy with my box and am excited to try the others in the box.
The current batch of sets features two poor choices. I purchased both yarns online from different companies. I’ve used both yarns before and thought the colors would be ok for sets. Generally, I try to use darker colors or grays so the recipients won’t have to worry about the items getting dirty since they may not have access to laundry facilities.
Another set… The yarn was pink and blues. Again, the pink gradient seemed darker online and I made a mistake. I wanted to try all of the colors in Lion Brand’s Mandala Ombre. The light pink is very light and almost white in some places. Again, I like the yarn but I will steer away from that colorway – Pure.
There’s just a rhythm to crocheting, not just the stitches or a pattern but the time that is spent crocheting. Recently, I realized that I complete more sets when I have a few hats made and then make the scarves later. For the past couple of weeks I have made a few hats and then made the scarves later in the week and found that I was more productive that way. When I made a hat, then immediately started working on a scarf, somehow the flow was interrupted and I completed fewer sets in a week. Not that it’s a race, even though I set yearly goals, I realize that by having several projects in progress at a time makes me more motivated.
From Friday to Sunday of Super Bowl weekend I finished four scarves. A couple had already been started with a few rows already completed on a couple of them. The routine starts with a few rounds of a hat on Sunday night so I can mindlessly crochet during webinars or large group meetings on Monday. Then Sunday through Wednesday make a few more hats. Then, Thursday through Sunday work on the scarves to match the hats and the cycle starts all over again. This pattern and rhythm has worked since the last weekend in January. I’ll keep working at it and see if the rhythm of making a few hats in the beginning and then the matching scarves works.
This week I’ve finished five hats and may complete another to add to the “inventory” before transitioning to scarves. There’s no set schedule, I might start another hat and then start working on scarves since this is a long weekend or maybe make a bunch of hats and then switch to scarf mode not following a hard switch because of the day of the week. The rhythm of a group of hats then scarves is a more natural flow rather than finishing a complete before starting another.
Also, as I was looking for something on my computer, I saw something that jogged my memory about other things I made last year, I’d forgotten about the 
A hat pattern that I have memorized this year is 
Though I’ve made dozens of hats, I want to get better at making them. To improve my technique, I look at patterns and stitches to see what I can incorporate into future hats. Particularly I’m looking to see what works, what doesn’t and to develop a better eye for hat making.
My eye for hats hasn’t developed yet. I make plans for afghans and can see the best use of oddballs and color combinations. While hats are smaller, it’s the varied sections: height, crown, brim, circumference means there’s more variables to take into consideration, not to mention style. Is this a close fitting beanie or a slouchy hat? So many options.
