What to do when you run out of yarn-five ways to win at yarn chicken!
Are you familiar with the conundrum of what to do when you run out of yarn before you project is complete? Here are 5 ways to help you win at yarn chicken. Running out of yarn does not always have to mean a project needs binning, frogging or resigning to the Unfinished Object heap. There are plenty of ways to deal with it!
I am a serial weigher when it comes to my yarn and estimating whether I have enough. When I’m designing, I tend to weight the ball of yarn before and after a row/round and calculate the amount required compared to the amount I have. At least then I’m braced for the impending disaster and can formulate an action plan. (My digital kitchen scales from ASDA, which were really cheap, are surprisingly accurate!) I still find myself running out on some projects though!
In this post, I will share with you five tips for winning at yarn chicken – hopefully one of them will help you out!
1) Add stripes before you run out of yarn
I’m going to start with a solution for when you ‘know’ you’re going to run short well in advance. For example if you know that you’re going to be more than a few yards short but you’re using some very swish hand dyed yarn that you can’t get more of. If it’s variegated yarn you could pick out one of the colours and use another yarn that matches/ contrasts well to work the ribbing on garments (and heels/toes on socks).
It might be that there is a place you can make a contrasting stripe before continuing in the original yarn. This looks especially effective on blankets. A series of stripes worked in as part of the design can also make it look as if you had planned it all along. If a contrast colour is hard to find, you could select a neutral yarn such a white, cream or grey to make stripes with.
2) Frog and rework with a tighter tension
This tip and the next are ideal if you are literally a few stitches away from being able to finish. You will probably only need to frog one row or round to gain enough yarn. Increasing tension slightly works really well with acrylic yarn as it stretches, so you’ll probably find that you all of a sudden have enough yarn without it affecting the appearance of your project. I haven’t tried it when using other fibres really. Feel free to leave a comment below if you have tried it and share whether it worked for you or not.
3) Frog and drop a hook or needle size
This tip needs to be used with care, so only drop the smallest increment you can initially. (0.25mm if you have that many sizes, although I know crochet hooks tend to go up in 0.5mm size increments.) If you’re working a border, for example, you might be able to just work that using a different hook size. Each stitch will make your yarn go a fraction further, adding up to a big difference after lots of stitches. As above, you only need to frog one row or round to begin with. If you’re making a garment or other gauge sensitive project keep any eye on how the overall item looks as you work.
4) Add a wide border when you run out of yarn
If you’re working a blanket or other project in rounds and you know you are going to run out before it reaches the size you want, you could use up what you have and then work a contrasting coloured border until it reaches the size you want.
5) Change the pattern
Subtle changes to a pattern can help make your yarn go further. At its simplest, this method could just mean switching a row of treble (US double) crochet stitches for double (US single) crochet stitches. If you’ve got some very yarn-hungry rows or rounds to work (such as those using popcorns or clusters) which aren’t crucial to the overall look of the project you could just work all plain stitches. Alternatively you could work half the number of clusters or popcorns. You just need to do a little maths to make sure stitch counts still work.
If you really are going to run out of yarn, combining the above tips might well help you to complete your project without purchasing more yarn (and praying that the dye lots purchased months apart match!)
It’s amazing what combinations of colours you can come up with when you raid your stash. It can be done really subtly-unless of course you are trying to recreate the ’80s, in which case anything goes! Sometimes the little changes we make to help yarn go further actually improve the project, like the border of my Chantilly Rose cushion needing to be pink as I ran out of cream.
If all else fails, you could just throw it in a dark corner until you’re ready to try and deal with it (or frog it).
How do you make sure you win at yarn chicken? Do you have any more tips to add?
