Category: household items

Throw Me a Bone Pet Placemat

pillbugdocLeave a comment
a rectangular mat with a white bone shape in the middle on a pink ground with border of pink and white stripes

At the heart of stashbusterology is matching a pattern or project with the perfect yarn. An added bonus is the perfect person to gift the object to! I had a stash trifecta this winter with a pile of vintage rug yarn (from my mother-in-law’s stash), the pattern, and my step-step-daughter’s two little dogs.

Why, Kathleen, did you buy this stuff? And why pink?

Knowing I had this “rug yarn”–scratchy, stiff and larger than #4–when I saw this pattern I thought of it immediately.

However, the rug yarn was thicker than the yarn called for in the pattern and I wanted to use up multiple different colors. How to make sure I had enough of the main colors to make it work??? First I swatched and got an idea of how big the bone in the middle would be if I followed the chart and that seemed reasonable. Then I decided to cut down the background area to leave only a two stitch border, since I wasn’t sure I would have enough of the same color of pink to work the intarsia section.

After working the intarsia section, I started working in rounds until I ran out of the main color of pink yarn. After that I kept working rounds of different colors of the pink yarns (as many as I had yarn for) and ended with three more rounds of white. All of these decisions were made on the fly based on how it looked. Alternating the darker and lighter colors seemed to look the best.

  • Around and around and around we go, where I’ll stop…
  • Does this pile look smaller to you?

I didn’t use all the yarn, but I made a project–and made it work with the yarn I had. And I even exported it from the premises. Stashbusterology at it’s finest!

What tips do you have for modifying patterns to make them with a different/unknown amount of yarn? What types of patterns work best for that (I am thinking center out shawls…)?

Sock It To Me Bathroom Rug

pillbugdocLeave a comment
Turn your old socks into a plushy and indestructible bathroom rug!

Today we are gonna talk about old socks. Yup, just about the most disgusting old things you don’t feel too sad about throwing away. If they are 100% cotton or wool you could theoretically compost them, but I am talking about athletic socks with nylon and Lycra. I don’t know about your household, but with three or four workouts a week we generate an annual supply of at least a dozen pairs of blown out, dingy, ratty socks. Inspired by “calamari” technique of Mason Dixon Knitting, I discovered you can make them into a kind of yarn.

Making Sock Yarn–step-by-step

  • Start with a pile of old socks
  • and a sharp pair of scissors.
  • Cut the sock into 1/2″ wide strips, changing the angle of cuts to exclude the heel.
  • Hold the loop you want to join over your thumb and pinkie and line the existing chain perpendicular to the one you are holding
  • Put the new loop under the old one, then scoop your finger through the old loop and under the new one.
  • Pull the new loop up through the old one and through itself, letting the loop slide off your other fingers
  • Pull up until snug
  • and repeat until you have a giant ball of sock yarn.

Now get your biggest crochet hook out (I used a P = 15 mm). Make four chains and join with a slip stitch. Crochet as many single crochets as you can in the loop. Continue working in a spiral in rounds, making two singles in every single for the first couple of rounds, then gradually decreasing the frequency of increases as the circle gets larger. Basically if you can’t reach the next single crochet to work into with the hook, make a second single crochet in the same stitch. Check frequently to make sure you are keeping the shape flat. Keep going until you are temporarily out of socks or your rug is big enough. Standard round bath rugs are about 30″ across.

Socks with color make nice little flecks of color in the rug

Warnings: Cutting up the socks may give you sore hands. Working the sock yarn rug may give you sore hands. Little fragments of sock lint will get everywhere.

Upcycle quotient: throwing away only the heel and toe instead of the whole sock.