Yarn Yarn Basket

When I make these tall slipper socks, I use one skein of yarn per sock so there aren't any joins or knots in the sock. This means that over the years, I've amassed a whole bunch of little balls of scraps like this:

 

As they got to a point where they would topple out on me every time I opened my stash closet, I wanted to think of something I could do with them. I tried out a few headbands and a slouchy hat, but I didn't really love the results. The super bulky yarn creates a really firm fabric if you knit it tightly, which does keep the cold out, but makes the ear warmer headbands not quite stretchy enough. The hat was done at a looser gauge which meant it looked really cute, but the wind went right through it, which is not ideal for a hat. Then I came across an idea...I could make it into a basket! It would use up a bunch of it, and joining scraps together wouldn't be a problem since it's not a garment and I didn't have to worry about knots being irritating. The yarn is washable, so if (when) my pets get ahold of it I can toss it in the machine. And best of all, it would be useful! See - useful even during construction, already holding the yarn:

Right now I've got it holding the start of my Bleeker Street Cardigan, so this large size basket is easily corralling a sweater's worth of yarn in sport weight.

I tend to knit and decorate with a lot of the same colors, so it fits in to my home pretty well. Oh, and a yarn yarn basket and a dog using a stuffed dog as a pillow? Is that meta?

The sweater itself is going pretty well. I'm working with a yarn I got from a ravelry destash, so I got it for a steal, and it turned out to be cashmere! Nice! Especially since I can't count to 6 (the number of rows in the texture repeat) and I had to knit a few inches twice.

I'm back to the point that I ripped out now. I'm starting with the sleeves and working them two at a time so they are identical. I'm also counting now, so they aren't messed up identically as well. Then I plan to work the body in one piece rather than three as called for, so I hope I don't regret that later. It's knit bottom up, but I like my sweaters to be as long as possible. I'm going to start above the ribbing with a provisional cast on, knit up to the shoulders as directed and do all that finishing (the button band is worked at the same time as the body), and then go back and knit down the bottom until I run out of yarn.

I'm hopeful it will be ready for fall! What do you think of the yarn baskets? I'm thinking about listing them in my Etsy shop in the future. I think I could fold the whole thing down and ship it pretty easily in a flat rate box. For the smaller sized basket I might be able to ship it first class if I can find the right sized box.