I am one of those people who does not like to sit idle. So I try to bring a small project with me to keep my hands busy while waiting. Usually that is a small knitting project, and one of the easiest portable projects is knitting small dish cloths. I knit in the car (as a passenger of course), while sitting and chatting with friends, during Zoom meetings for work, etc. My go to pattern is called Corrugated Cloth which I knit on 4.5 mm needles with 33 stitches in a row. So far in 2023 I’ve knit over 225 dish cloths and there are still a couple of months left.
I had been accumulating odd balls of scraps. Bits of yarn too small to make a full dish cloth. My scrap yarn bag had filled to the top and so I decided to make a scrap blanket.
After browsing patterns and projects on Ravelry I picked the pattern Excavation, but with a couple of modifications. I opted to omit the fringe and instead knit the blanket continuously. I also opted to alternate 2 balls of yarn, doing 2 rows with the first colour, then 2 rows of the second colour. This resulted in a nicely striped blanket. Often I joined in new yarn mid-row using a Russian join to splice the yarns together. Generally I alternated scraps with a bit of white in them with scraps that were darker (no white).
About a month later, my cotton scrap blanket was done. The finished project is 46″ x 48″ (116.8 cm x 121.9 cm). It was a very relaxing knit and the growth of the blanket was aided by some long Zoom training sessions for work.
Now that the blanket is complete, I was evaluating my bag of scraps and there are still quite a few left. I think I used 2/3 of the initial bag of scraps in the blanket. I also found another bag with scraps and a couple of odd balls. Another scrap blanket is on the horizon. Maybe next time I’ll use a single colour to contrast with the scraps. I will keep this in mind next time I’m shopping for more cotton yarn and see if I can find a main yarn I’d like to use. I wonder what colour I should pick? (I am open to suggestions!)
