Using Fancy Yarns for Charity Crochet
I am not a yarn addict, nor do I very often even buy yarn. Mostly yarn just finds me and begs me to make something useful from it. It seems lately that people in my various knit and crochet groups are given yarn by some friend who is decluttering their stash, or outgrown the cheap stuff and moved on to the expensive yarns. At most of the three once-a-month meetings I attend, someone brings some yarn to donate. They put it out on the table and it is up for grabs. There is usually just one skein leftover from a project they finished or even just a small ball of assorted yarns of varying ages and colors.
Other times word gets out that I crochet for charity using donated yarns and suddenly a tub or bag full of yarn comes my way. I don’t work with wool yarns, and since I am donating almost all the hats I make I actually prefer working with acrylic yarn along the lines of Red Heart Super Saver or similar. I’ve found it really doesn’t matter if it is thinner yarn because I like working with 2 different yarns at a time to make interesting designs and textures. I especially love the mystery of what a variegated yarn will look like when it is made up. Thick yarns are great because you can use just the single strand, but often even an entire skein of the chunky yarns is not enough to make an entire hat. Then I have to get creative and find something to pair with it as a band.
Over the past six months or so I have been more daring with what I pick to work with from these donated yarns and I have had a lot of fun experimenting with them to see what I can do and which I like or dislike working with. Below are photos of a few of the Crochet Hats I’ve made recently with donated fancy yarns.
Eyelash/Boa Yarn
I paired the black and navy eyelash yarn with simple black yarn and had to feel my way from stitch to stitch but it was fun and challenging and feels so nice to touch. It has a shimmer to it that made it difficult to photograph, but you get a pretty good idea from the 2 photos below. I happened to have the label for this yarn and thought some of you might want to know what it is.
This hat worked out so well that when a friend brought in a bunch of interesting yarns I decided to be daring a take a bunch of different ones to make up. Maybe the person who sent the yarn with her to give away will enjoy seeing that it is being put to good use. In the case of the hats below with the contrasting bands, I ran out of the fancy yard before the hat was finished so I improvised. These are all one of a kind hats as you can imagine.
Soft/Fluffy/Fuzzy Yarn
Multi-Colored Sparkly Yarn
Light-Weight Variegated
Compared to the others on this page, the hat below is kind of boring. It is much like the hats I usually make. I showed it here as a way to use up yarns you might not know what to do with. I also wanted to point out that the green acrylic yarn is the same for this hat and the one below.
Variegated Long Stringy Yarn
I took the photo below to explain how I was using the two yarns in tandem to create the cool fuzzy effect. The fancy yarns are not suitable alone to make hats, they are too thin to work up well with this pattern, but the basic acrylic yarn gives it stability, strength, and character.
This hat looks the same inside and out. The color of the green base yarn didn’t really match either yarn I paired it with but it turned out nice in both cases.
The lower band on this hat shows the true color of the green base yarn. It is the length it is because I ran out of the green yarn too, but I think it is a nice length.
If you know me in real life or live near central Indiana and want to donate yarn for myself or others to make various items for charity, please contact me and we can plan a time and place to meet up. This is a great way to declutter your stash to make room for new and exciting yarns you can get excited about making new projects with.
I have made this recipe twice now. The first time I didn’t have the frozen cranberries and couldn’t find them in the grocery when I was buying the rest of the ingredients for this recipe, so I left them out. Hubby and I both LOVED this recipe! It was awesome. The sage really makes it. It reminds me of 
