Kooky

Want to secure your identity as the neighborhood "eccentric"?

You can't go wrong with a kooky vest:

What better use for scraps of yarn?

The Kook Factor

I'm all for using up those little scraps of yarn (waste not, want not, you know!), but it's important to take into account the kook factor such a random mishmash of stripes and pools of color can introduce to a piece...

Not everyone can pull off this look without seeming slightly ridiculous. 

On the other hand, no-one will ever miss you in a crowd.  ("I'll be the one in the crazily striped hat with the big, yellow, crocheted rose on it.")

Rags to Riches-- Er, or Maybe Not...

If you're like a lot of knitters and crocheters who've been "at it" for a while, you've probably accumulated a supply of leftover bits and bobs of yarn-- a scrap stash, if you will.  A project rarely requires exactly the amount of yarn in that last ball or skein.  We can't bear to waste the leftover yarn, so we keep it, even though it's usually not enough on its own to supply a whole new project and it's often impossible to buy more of that color or dye lot.  

So what's a knitter/crocheter to do?

Well, I'll tell you one thing-- it's not a valid excuse to make something like this:

Ugh.  It's made of loop fringe.
It looks like some ill-conceived rag rug... from a 1970s kitchen... that has been on the floor getting heavy use since the 1970s... and never once washed during that entire period.  (I.e. probably not the sort of thing you want to wear as a coat.)

Please, my fellow scrap hoarders.  There are better options available to us.  Keep looking!  Don't despair!  Don't cave in and make a rag rug coat!