Leftover yarn? You can count on it, especially after the holiday season. There are little bits here and there that I know are very useful for decorating and making quick ornaments for December 2018. You say there’s a lot of time, but as we’ve all experienced, Christmas has this way of sneaking up on us.

Here are some ideas this week to make good use of bits left over.

When I originally saw the pattern Y-A-R-N Wrapped Letters on the Red Heart website, I really liked the idea especially since you could customize it anyway you liked. The pattern is for the letters Y-A-R-N, but if you wanted to change it up for the holidays you can write anything you like. I chose the letters N-O-E-L.

In the pattern there are guides to help you wrap the letters, but you’re basically using glue to secure the yarn to the letters. The letters can be picked up at your local craft store and they’re relatively inexpensive. The ones I procured were from Michaels and they were $2 – $3 per letter. The letters you use can really be dependent on the amount of yarn you have left over. If you have years and years worth of leftover yarn you can always chose to do very long word strings like Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or Happy Holidays.

You can choose smaller words, like I have done with Noel. If you don’t have a whole lot of scraps left and you want to do this project, then just pick up a letter or shape now and then and as the year unfolds, add the leftover yarn to a shape. By December you’ll have completed letters.

There are plenty of shape cut outs that would be perfect to wrap. Especially around the holidays, you can grab things like stars, trees, or baubles of any manner.

Here is the back of the letters. You can see where I glued the yarn onto the letters and wrapped from there. I found a great technique for getting the yarn to stick was to put a dab of glue, then put the strand of yarn in it and twist the yarn. This way the glue gets all the way around the strand and it isn’t just floating on the top of your glue dab.

With the amount of different letter styles you can get from the craft store, the possibilities are endless. The ones I picked up are fairly flat, which is perfect for hanging on a wall, or securing inside a shadow box to hang like a photo. There are letters that are more stylized than the block ones I bought. Since I’m using a variety of different yarns I thought it would be a good idea to have plain letters, but if your yarn is all very similar, then feel free to choose interesting curly letters. There were also block letters that stand on their own, like the ones in the Red Heart pattern photo.

As knitters, it’s sometimes difficult to share our love of fiber with others, but this is the perfect group activity. It uses your leftover yarn, but doesn’t include a great amount of skill. This is an excellent activity to do with children or crafty non-knitter friends.

Join me tomorrow for more yarn crafting ideas using leftover yarn.