Catherine's Crochet Corner

Sometimes you’ve just got to stash bust. You’ve just got to. Part-balls and full balls and random bits and pieces that just have to be used. Storage space stuffed to the maximum. Bags of yarn spilling over into other areas of the house. No room for purchasing more yarn for another project (like, say, my next blanket) until some of the existing yarn is used up. It’s my own fault, I know. I like starting blankets with full balls of yarn, and obviously better safe than sorry in terms of quantity, so I frequently end up with full, untouched balls left over at the end. And the part-used balls, of course. And sometimes you’ve just got to face up to the stash, roll up your sleeves, and reduce the sheer volume of it all.

So that’s what I’m trying to do at the moment. Find or make smaller patterns to use up the odds and ends left over from other projects.

Basket of stash

Making progress!

Four finished rings

I had quite a bit of Classique DK yarn leftover from my The Four Seasons embroidery hoops, so I decided I’d make some little wreaths along the same lines. I purchased four 17cm polystyrene rings, I used the colour schemes from the hoops, and the flowers, leaves and snowflakes are from that pattern too. There’s no pattern for the wreaths as such: I worked 17 foundation single crochet to begin, and then a lot of backwards and forwards, changing colour at random, until I had about 83 rows. Then I used all the ends from those colour changes to sew the rectangle onto the polystyrene ring.

I bought some pearl-headed pins to pin on all the decorations, which has the double benefit of reducing the amount of sewing I had to do, and means that in the future if I want to rearrange them to freshen the wreaths up, I can. Win-win 😀

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Aren’t they pretty? I’m really pleased with them 😀 I’m planning to hang them on my bedroom door – one at a time, obviously, not all four at once. I’ll rotate them seasonally. I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to hang them, mind you, but I’ll work something out.

Onwards and upwards. I am determined to conquer this stash pile!