Yarn you no longer love

I co-ordinate my unloved yarns and make blanket and hat sets for the neo-natal care unit at the hospital.

 HI! Yours  yarn sounds like a nice yarn, so I would suggest offering it to a Senior's Group, who could knit or crochet it up for a charity project. Actually, I would make a baby blanket out of green...baby colors are very non-traditional anymore. I wanted to offer one other suggestion for using up those unloved yarns or end of the skeins...blankets for cats and dogs at shelters. They are nice small projects which go quickly...fun fur is great for cats...they love to play with it...and I've read, that cats/dogs with their own blankets have a higher rate of being adopted!!

Deb in Nebraska

Life is too short for cheap wine and unloved yarn.  I decided I didn't want to make socks , but I had bought a lot of sock yarn when I was just starting.  A mission from Nicaragua asked for certain items, and yarn was on the list.  I don't know if they need self-striping sock yarn, but it made room for yarn that I don't feel guilty about not knitting.  A friend of mine makes sweaters for charity, striped with all sorts of odds and ends. 

Hello! I find that I can most easily give away yarn to a young knitter or crocheter.  I live in a holiday subdivision and the young girls coming down for their holidays sometimes get a bit bored with just sea and sun.  On a rainy day, I hold an open house and we go through my yarn stash and practice stitches.  It's amazing to see how creative a ten-year-old can be with some yarn, ad in some additional colour and texture, and they're off. 

Mili in Istria

 Hi,

I agree with FiberFriend...life's too short to use yarn you don't want to knit anymore. Some suggestions: if you like the color, roll it in attractive balls or skeins and plop it in a basket for decoration. If you really just want it out of your sight, I second the posters who say give it away to your Senior Center or other group that does charity knitting. Or, if there is a Waldorf school locally, you could see if they would like it. Good luck!

 What a great idea to use unwanted yarn as a decoration! I'm definitely going to try that . . . if I can keep my cat away from it that is!

Jody

 I am glad not the only one, got a bunch of yarn now too much of it,a closet full and not knitting fast enough, and no ideas what to do with it, hate to give it away I might just find a use for it.  Some one is making doggie blankets , maybe that would work.

 What I am going to do is this.  After reading some of the responses you received I will share with you an idea that works for me.  I posted previously that I love all my yarn as a favorite at the time I purchase it and can always find something to do with what is left of it.   I try to use it in an interesting way in a motif I design myself.  That way I can plan how the motif will go & in what color schemes to use up the varying amounts of what is left. 

Also I realized other people do have yarn they tire of, so I am planning to invite some knitters and some 'friends' of knitters over for an evening and ask them to bring needles & YARN they tired of to trade off in exchange for what someone else brings.  Then of course, there will be an excess of yarn all over the place.  I will supply extra knitting needles (which I do have an excess of) and the 'friends' of knitters will be enticed to want to learn how to knit as well.  We all started somewhere!  After much trading, teaching and knitting, the Idea is everyone goes home happy!   

 Hi Mili, you gave me a great idea from reading your thread (I think) that I just answered to the original question re: yarn you no longer love.  The idea is good to invite people in gave me the idea to do a similar only with each person bringing their own yarn to trade with someone else who brings their own they want to get rid of and everyone goes home with 'new' yarn.  You can read the rest of my message on this post. 

That is exactly what I have decided to do with all my unloved yarn... crochet up quick blankets for a local animal shelter!  I didn't know though that cats/dogs with their own blankets have a higher rate of being adopted... so now I feel even better about it.  I decided that from now on I am not going to buy a yarn just because I like it and then try to find something to do with it... I am going to find a pattern that I want to make and THEN buy the yarn!!!  That is how I ended up with my stash. =)  I have one blanket done and am almost done with another...  I will use up all my yarn one day!

Amanda in Tennessee

 Well, I will tell you how I have dealt with yarn I no longer love..... If it is nice wool, but the color is the problem, I have learned how to fall in love all over again by dyeing it!!!!!!

Now dyeing is not something that you do on a whim since the dyes are toxic, so do a little research, there are some wonderful sites out there with how to information. My first dyeing project was some beautiful handspun wool in hanks that my mother in law gave me when she was cleaning out her stash. The colors were uninspiring. Pale pink, beige and natural.... I asked my husband to pick up some dye packets for me while he was in town.... I got black, teal and a magenta. I knew nothing about what I was doing, did not pre soak the yarn, and used a cooking pot that now has been taken out of the kitchen. The results were amazing a magical. I fell in love with that yarn, ended up making a striped bag which I felted, it is beautiful.

I also am more discriminating now than I was when I was young and price was the object. I tend not to buy things I don't like. I just cleaned out my stash, removing all acrylics and things that didn't turn me on any more. I was on my way to the thrift shop, had a lovely lunch with my colleagues and said I had some yarn in my trunk if anyone was interested.... Right there in the parking lot they had a mini fiber frenzy and took the whole lot of it.

Yarn is never unloved or wasted in my house. I save the odd ends and my youngest daughter and I make god's eyes with them.

 Donating it to a worthy cause/organization is a great idea.  You can also try to trade/swap/sell to another knitter.  I knot Knittinghelp.com has a trade/swap forum, so does ralvery.com.  Maybe it'd be a good idea to add such a forum here. 

DebP:

 HI! Yours  yarn sounds like a nice yarn, so I would suggest offering it to a Senior's Group, who could knit or crochet it up for a charity project. Actually, I would make a baby blanket out of green...baby colors are very non-traditional anymore. I wanted to offer one other suggestion for using up those unloved yarns or end of the skeins...blankets for cats and dogs at shelters. They are nice small projects which go quickly...fun fur is great for cats...they love to play with it...and I've read, that cats/dogs with their own blankets have a higher rate of being adopted!!

Deb in Nebraska

This is kind of off topic, but isn't yarn bad for cats? It can hurt them badly and then they might end up needing surgery.

 I think it's only if they swallow a strand of yarn as it can get stuck in their intestines and then require surgery to remove it safely. If yarn is part of a finished project they shouldn't be able to swallow it, unless they actually chew it apart! I've knit several items for my cat and haven't had any problems. I've also done some knitting for animal shelters who have had handknitted blankets on their wishlists.

Knit cat blankets to stuff in the carriers of my two kitties - but my ugly-yarn stash isn't particularly large these days.  I used to move around a lot, and a lot of bad yarn ended up in the trash.  So I just combine whatever yarns I have left to make a blanket.  Needless to say, my cat blankets are sometimes rather strange looking!