Small gifts you can make with your yarn stash
Images courtesy of Canva
Now is the time to start thinking about gifts. This is a time of year when the obsessive crafter in me wants to make all the things for all the people in my life! It leads me to unachievable goals (knitting 10 pairs of socks in a month?! Who do I think I am?!), and every year I tell myself I’ll plan months in advance next year (I don’t).
If you’re like me and only just thinking about gift-making now, I have compiled a list of relatively quick knit and/or crochet projects that would make great gifts and have the bonus of being good leftover yarn and stash busters if you’re into that too!
In this blog, I’ll list ideas, all of which I have found and saved to my Pinterest board. Make sure you follow me there for more inspiration!
Note: I have not checked the patterns I link to, and they are a mix of free and paid-for patterns.
Bookmarks
Do you have an avid reader in your life? A handmade bookmark would make a great gift. There are many free crochet and knitting bookmark patterns out there. You can check out my Pinterest board associated with this post, to get some ideas.
View my stash-busting gifts Pinterest board.
Some handmade, cotton cloths I made last year
2. Cloths
Cloths can be made for multiple purposes, From face cloths to dishcloths, these can make very useful presents for someone in your life! Ideally, they’ll be made with cotton yarn, but you can get very creative with colour and patterns.
View all the cloth pattern suggestions on my Pinterest board
3. Coasters
As with cloths, coasters are a very useful gift! The fact that they are handmade by you also makes them very unique. The image below shows two I made last year. These were actually a set of four that I gifted to a friend. The main section is made with cotton yarn, I then added picot edging, using the small bits of acrylic yarn I had left from crocheting a cardigan!
See all the wonderful knit and crochet coaster patterns on Pinterest
Coasters made by me
4. Coffee Cozies
Following the hot drinks theme, any coffee drinker will love a handmade cozy to keep their coffee warm! From mug cozies to take-out cup cozies, there’s a cozy for every occasion! I feel like I have to say, as a Brit, these are also just as good for tea drinkers!
I’ve talked about cozies keeping hot drinks warm, but they can also be used to protect your hands from the cold of iced drinks. Olly and Hazel, a crochet designer, has a really cute mason jar cozy, that would be great for this!
5. Hats
My Journey Hat is a great example of an easy, quick knitting project that would make a great gift. I designed it specifically to be something easy to pick up and knit while you’re out and about running other errands.
Tin Can Knits has a lot of free knitted hat patterns on their website. I’ve made a few of their patterns before and always find them easy to read, and I love that most of their patterns are available in newborn to adult sizes.
Don’t forget to check out more inspiration on my Pinterest board. Please like, share and save if you enjoyed what you read today.
The Journey Hat