By Sara Joyce
Annika Scheer of Rosemary and Pines Fibre Arts in Germany is a longtime scrap yarn enthusiast and has recorded several videos on her popular YouTube channel on how to use up scraps and single skeins. She has also created an inspirational bundle of scrap knitting patterns by various designers on Ravelry — check out RosemaryAndPines > Notebook > Favourites > Bundles > Scrap Knitting Projects, or see Raverly.
Some of the designs featured in this bundle include Wool & Pine’s glorious Sea Glass series of sweaters, featuring a DK weight main colour, and a multitude of colourful fingerweight scraps held double, in a simple 1×1 stranded colourwork pattern. All yarn requirements are stated in grams, so you can weigh your scraps and leftovers before beginning. Their Voyage cardigan uses fingering weight leftovers in various colours and bands of geometric patterns for the body, offset by solid sleeves and bands. See Voyage by Wool & Pine on Raverly.
Wool & Pine’s Sundial Tee is a cap-sleeved top for warmer weather. It features colourful mosaic strips in a slip stitch pattern, great for using up leftovers and mini skeins. Instructions provide yarn weight in grams needed to complete each interlocking mosaic stripe.
Interested in playing with marls? Designer Summer Lee offers the Stash Dive Raglan pullover with a choice of necklines, which knits up quickly with a worsted and a fingering weight yarn held together. The pattern includes a video tutorial on working with scrap yarns to create a marled effect, and tips for dealing with scrap ends.
Our friends at Knitty.com, the longest-running free knitting magazine on the web, regularly publish new free patterns that make great use of leftover yarns and mini skeins. The current Spring-Summer 2026 issue offers three new patterns specifically designed to make effective use of scraps and partial balls :
- Anna Hyatt’s Scrapple, a pair of scraptastic handwarmers, which would be an ideal beginner project in stranded knitting.
- Quattro Socks by Soft Sloth Knits, featuring tangram-inspired geometric blocks of colourful sock/fingering yarns.
- Mural Socks by Susana Lobos Garcia, a cuff-down design which uses versatile geometric motifs to paint a colourful picture.
The Knitty.com Winter 2025 issue features four more inspiring scrap yarn patterns:
- Kate Harvie’s Kaleidoscope – sleeveless sweater using DK or fingering weight yarns of any length and slipped stitches to create a vivid textured fabric.
- Revisited by Veronica Ory – a large fringed scarf with contrasting stripes of dark and light/bright colours running lengthwise and slipped stitches to add texture. To amp up the fun factor, put your light/bright colours in one basket, and your darks in another, and alternate at random.
- Oddment – a half -circle shawl by Taylor Rutledge combining garter and eyelet stitch texture with stripes of varying widths in a cornucopia of colours of sock yarn, using individual balls from 0.75 to 20 grams.
- Thrumline, by Gillian McLeod, is a tubular scarf knit in worsted weight, studded or ‘thrummed’ with jewels of leftover yarns of all weights and colours.
Fans of Modern Daily Knitting (MDK) love their Field Guide collections of themed patterns. Field Guide #16, Painterly, includes new designs from Kaffe Fassett, famous for his mastery of colour and multiple yarns. Villages and Cityscapes are both scarves featuring simple intarsia in geometric shapes using small amounts of many colours. Field Guide #13, Master Class, features new Fassett designs in colourful stripes, including a garter stripe shawl, scarves, a cowl, and cushions.
Happy scrappy knitting!
