Waste not...

A recent post on Facebook got me thinking... someone posted a picture of a project she started with a variegated yarn. She said she didn't like the way the pattern was turning out, so she threw it away... yarn and all! Yikes! That just sounded so wasteful to me!

I follow a maker on Facebook who strives for zero waste. She goes to thrift shops and buys blankets and pajamas and turns them into cute little monsters. She uses as much material as she can for her toys, and chops up the remaining scraps to use as stuffing. (You can check her out at Lu and Ed )

That got me thinking about how I could put less of my "leftovers" into the garbage.

Over the years, I have collected quite the stash of yarn. I think there have been five or six times when I was given a large collection of yarn from an estate, house-cleaning or move.

A bag of yarn that appeared in my office one day... took a week to find out who gave it to me! 

Yarn inherited when a co-worker moved out of state.

I try to use up all the yarn I've been given. Sometimes it calls for creativity... using multiple strands of thin yarn, or combining it with a different color. I try to find projects to use up unusual colors or textures.

When I want to start a project, I check through my online yarn inventory on Ravelry. I can sort it by color, yarn thickness, or amount of yarn I have. For many projects, I just need to go "yarn shopping" in the basement...

There are two more totes since this picture was taken. 

After I finish a project, I usually have leftover yarn. Usually I use my yarn winder to make it into a neat little cake, and it goes into a cardboard tray. 

This makes it easier to see at a glance what I have to use up. Once in a while, I will go through the trays, weighing, photographing and sorting the yarn into the color-specific bins. It's easier to just leave it in the trays and use it up, though! 😁

Some balls end up in these pretzel bins - sorted by color (there are seven of them!)

Sometimes, the yarn leftover is too small to make it into the trays. 

I have three options for those "little scraps"... at the back of the picture is a one-gallon Ziploc bag for small balls of yarn. If it's walnut-size or smaller, it goes into that bag. That comes in handy for stuff like striped snakes, crazy hair on monsters, or accents like flowers and bows. 

On the right side, there's a smaller bag that holds yarn that's not even big enough to wind into a ball. When I finish sewing a project and have a 6" piece of yarn left, it goes in that bag. Those pieces come in handy for the sprinkles on donuts, or for embroidering faces on small stuffed animals. My husband is glad that I'm not tossing little bits of yarn, because he has found mouse nests partially made of yarn in his air filter! I don't know where the mice got the yarn, but I'm doing my best to keep it away from them! 

Donut holes with sprinkles! 

And at the front of the picture, I have a small jelly jar that I put really small pieces of yarn into. They will be used as stuffing for small projects. 

This was my project box for my last craft show. I was making donuts and donut holes, so I had a lot of brown yarn. I would put white "frosting" on the donut and use my scrap yarn bags for sprinkles! 

I try to keep other trash to a minimum too. When I finish a skein of yarn, the paper yarn band goes into the recycling bin. I use recycled boxes to ship orders. I'm always claiming the empty k-cup boxes at the office! And if I really don't like the way a project is turning out, I will tear it out and reuse the yarn for something else! 

I notice a difference in the amount of trash I generate. I have a 32-ounce plastic cup next to my chair that I put garbage into. I used to empty it every other day... and now I barely put anything into it!