What do you do when you have little scraps of fiber sitting around the studio, bits and bobs, tufts from other projects? While mini-skeins is often the answer, I am not a fan of minis without a specific purpose in mind.
If I can’t coordinate a full project, sometimes I just combine down and blend all the scraps together. This makes a muddy blend of colors and neutralizes any bright or off tones in the mix. I keep a scrap bag near by drum carder and any waste I pull from the drum or from my blending board also gets saved for these scrappy batts. The yarn that comes from these batts is heathered and usually contains a fair quantity of add-ins, like silk, angelina, firestar, and bamboo.
If the scraps are large enough, I’ll spin them end to end. Once or twice a year, I go through my samples and scraps and separate them out into color groups for individual spin projects. It makes the yarns look planned, even though each yarn is unique. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes it ends up looking like clown barf. And sometimes clown barf looks great once it is knitted up.
Scrappy yarns of either sort are great for small projects like hats or fingerless gloves. The Puff Stitch Hat by B.Hooked Crochet is one of my favorite crochet projects for scrappy yarns. The 75 Yard Fingerless Mitts pattern by Jeanne Stevenson is an easy knit pattern that shows off scrappy yarn well, too!