The Three R's - Part 1

As I was preparing to write this post, I was thinking about what Sew Green is all about. Living ecologically, obviously. But there is a craft or creative element to the blog. So then I started thinking about one of the basic environmental tenets: reduce, reuse, recycle. This post and the next two will explore the three R's, with an emphasis on craft.


Every knitter has this problem. No, I'm not talking about lack of time or a tendency toward obsessive/compulsive behaviour. I'm talking about the stash. The contents of the stash fall into two categories: yarn that had to be bought because it was too gorgeous to pass up, and will be used for future projects and leftover yarn that is too long to throw out and may possibly be needed for something at some distant future date.

I'm pretty good about resisting new yarn, but I'm horrible when it comes to throwing out the scraps. Recently, when I was trying to find a bag to take to the grocery store and realized that they were all full of yarn, I decided that it was time to seriously reduce the stash.

So, here are a couple of my successes...

Snake from Jess Hutchinson's book (now sadly out of print) using leftover yarn from baby blankets. Almost done!

French press cozies using wool leftover from making toques.

And a bunch of suggestions...

• cat toys
• jewelry
• baby booties
• finger puppets
• aliens

How are you reducing your stash?