Diagonal Fringed Neckwarmer

This pattern was born out of my aversion to weaving in ends.  I love to use color and to blend colors, but the thought of having to weave in two ends for every time I changed colors is enough to immediately put a pattern in the reject category.

I had a bunch of Homespun scraps, from various projects.  A high-school-acquaintance-now-reconnected-through-Facebook-friend had published a beautiful book, Eagles of the Ashokan.  The colors in her photographs inspired me to use different colors of scrap Homespun, together, and what resulted was this neckwarmer.

This pattern is about as easy as patterns come.  All you need to know is how to chain, make single crochets, and tie knots.

Materials:

Scraps of any sort of yarn.  I used Homespun.

Crochet Hook: any hook that will go with your yarn.  I used a K hook.

Leaving an 8” tail, ch 60 (or any number of stitches that will result in a ring that fits easily over your head).  Join with a slip stitch to the first chain (ok, so I lied, you also need to know how to sl), being careful not to twist chain.  Fasten off, leaving an 8” tail.  Tie tails together into a square knot.

Row 1:  In the ch after the join, attach a new piece of yarn, leaving an 8” tail, and sc in each ch, around, including the joining stitch.  Fasten off, leaving an 8” tail.  Tie tails together into a square knot.

Row 2:  In the sc after the join, attach a new piece of yarn, leaving an leaving an 8” tail, and sc in each sc, around, including the joining stitch.  Fasten off, leaving an 8” tail.  Tie tails together into a square knot.

Repeat Row 2 until the neckwarmer is about 8” wide.  Change colors as you wish, every row, every few rows.  It's up to you.  Trim fringes to desired length.

Here's the front:

And the back:

Here's one with slightly different colors:

And some others:

Copyright © 2010 HELEN WANG.  All rights reserved.

Yarn logging is progressing nicely.  Got a bunch more bins done.

The organization of my yarn stash continues.  Ravelry is a great tool for logging in my yarn stash and keeping track of all of my projects.

I was able to get through all 3 drawers of the yarn chest in the living room:

And a couple of bins:

The tripod I got for myself, yesterday, for my birthday, is one of the best investments I've made in a long time.  Taking pics of my yarn stash is a breeze now.  I can set up the camera in one spot and change the yarn.

I'm really excited about getting my yarn together.  I feel like I'm being productive, as I go through each bin of yarn.

My yarn obsession has long taken over my life. I've tried, ineffectively, for a long time, to organize my stash. My new years resolution was to not buy any yarn this year, but I'm thinking about changing it to not buying any yarn, until all of my stash has been organized and I know exactly what I have.

The plan, for the moment, is to enter EVERYTHING into Ravelry and then redistribute so that all of the same yarns are stored together. If I enter one bin of yarn a day, I should be done with the yarn in the garage in a few weeks. If I enter one shelf a day of the yarn in the cats' room, it should take another week. The yarn in the living room should take another week or so. And the yarn in the workroom should take another week. So, in two months, I should have all my yarn entered, if I stick to the plan.

Here's bin #1