Use It Up! - Yarn Projects

 

I had amassed a large amount of yarn that I'd picked up at thrift stores for 99¢ a skein whenever I had come across it.  The zippered bag that my bed set had come in was what I was using to store it all and it was FULL and about to bust at the seams.  I also had a gallon sized Mason jar filled with little yarn balls leftover from various projects I had completed over the years.  In January I started using some of my stash to make winter scarves to give as Christmas gifts which left me with more balls of leftover yarn.  I decided it was high time to bust this stash and get it used up!

 

I think I have finally mastered the granny square.  For one they are square.  I've not always managed to make pretty granny squares in the past, but this time all forty three of the twelve inch squares I just made are perfectly square.  Yay!  And pretty too.  Fortunately most of my yarns were all the same complimentary color palette of reds, greens, blues, tans and browns with the same in variegated varieties as well.  And no two squares turned out alike.  I had enough of the different yarns so that each one was different, no repeats.  How about that?

 

I think they turned out lovely

Jack decided to help me put them all together
He's a great helper, sort of.... LOL

Once my granny squares were done I laid them out on my living room floor like quilt squares and one I was happy with the arrangement I added a border around each one using a lovely buff fleck yarn to tie them all together.  Once I had borders around all of my squares I stitched them together by hand with my yarn needle.  All that was left to do was add a final border to finish up the afghan along the outer edge and it was complete.

 

I used a buff yarn to border each square and do my edging

Two completed afghans ready to be gifted

I had enough granny squares to make two good sized afghans with three squares leftover.  Two special people in my life will be getting one for Christmas this year.  I still need to decide what to do with my extra squares too.  I ended up purchasing extra skeins of the buff yarn to finish the bordering of the squares and the edging and luckily I was able to get it on sale at JoAnn's.  My final cost to put these afghans together came in at $2.99 each!  I was pretty happy about that, but even more so I love how these turned out.

 

All the yarn I have left now fits in this bin
I'm sure I'll figure out something to do with it 😉

I made Jack his own afghan which he loves

Now my yarn stash fits inside a small plastic tote and the plastic zippered bag has been retired to the garage for the time being.  Not only have I decluttered more of my craft stash, but I've managed to create two really nice gifts for two of my loved ones in the process, not to mention I thoroughly enjoyed making them.  I have them each wrapped in tissue paper and in large gift bags from my gift wrap stash.  They are all set and ready to place under our tree this Christmas.