How to Use a Mini Skein Part 2.

 After my post on mini skeins on Monday there Lisa and I got chatting and we very excitedly talked about some of our  favourites. Which gave me an idea to do a second post on mini skeins. As I am sure I mentioned then Lisa is starting a mini skein club which you can sign up to over on her etsy page at For the Love of Yarn. It's the perfect way to start your collection if you are wanting to have a shot at using them. You can start with as few as 3 skeins a month. If you do sign up or have already sign up I would love to see what you do with them so that I can look on enviously.

The reason Lisa and I got so excited in our chat is that we were talking about our love for all things Stephen West.  I've talked about Stephen West and his designs in March's What's New Post as I raved about brioce. What Lisa and I felt was that a set of mini skeins would be perfect for his designs. West isn't just famous for his designs but for his use of colour. He isn't afraid to experiment and to put different contrasting colours together. The mini skein is a perfect way to experiment with colour. You aren't comitting a full skein of yarn to a project, yarn that you might not want to use in case it doesn't work well. Also you get to put together lots of different colours depending on the size of the project.

So this first one by West is a big one. It's a chevron brioche blanket and I love it! So many contrasting yarns on there. This would be perfect if you joined the club as you could add a little to it each month.

If you don't want to commit to a project as large as a blanket you could always try one of his smaller designs. I quite like this cowl. It has a base colour with lots of vibrant colours interlinking. I love a cowl and this one looks big enough to wrap round you. My favourite kind. It's called the syncopation adoration cowl.

Another cowl but this time a free design by Loops Yarn. This one is a lot less complicated and yet just as effective. This would be a fabulous project for those mini skein packs that contain a series of matching colours. I've actually added this cowl to my ravelry library. It's called the Ritalin Cowl.

 This image is actually of a scarg I knitted a couple of years ago. I used some sock yarn here but Lisa is working on this particular pattern using mini skeins. It's called the Hittchiker by Martina Behm and is a favourite of my old knitting group. I wasn't the only one to knit a few of them. With mini skeins you have more control over when you change colour but you would have more choices of colour. It would allow you to be more creative and playful with it which is exactly what Lisa is doing.

This scrap bag is another free download from ravelry (Hitchhiker isn't free). this caught my eye on Pinterest a while back because of its rainbow colours. Again a perfect project for some mini skein's. of course you would need a contrasting yarn but think of how this project would change depending on the colours you used. The pattern is by Frankie Brown who has a few other lovely projects on there.

I hope this gives you even more ideas on what to do with a set of mini skeins. As I said last time the possibility is almost limitles and you are only limited by your own imagination. You don't have to stop at stripy projects. If any of you have more ideas or want to show off your mini skein projects I would love to hear about them.