I have a sort of love/hate relationship with variegated yarns. I adore how they look in the skein. I find them to be fun and colorful yet I hate how limiting they are to my knitting. There are only so many things you can knit using variegated yarn. So I often satisfy my longing for variegated colors with dish cloth cottons.

Cottons come in a wide variety of colors so I get to knit something in a fun color without being too concerned about how the pooling will look in the finished dishcloth. And even if you don’t like the way the color pools, the cloth still works quite nicely for cleaning.

The problem is that skeins of dishcloth cottons often contain too much yarn for one dishcloth but not quite enough for two. Consequently, I end up with lots of partial skeins in odd colors. Lately, I have been combining part skeins of different colors to make new and even more interesting variegated colors. None of the cloths pictured was made from a single color of yarn. They were all made from odd bits of leftovers, combined in interesting ways.

Here are some handy ways to combine colors with your leftover bits.

First, choose the yarns you want to combine. I find that if you choose two skeins that have at least one common color, the results is a new variegation that looks intentional. Choosing sharply contrasting colors make really interesting combinations in mosaic, intarsia or stranded colorwork.

Next, decide how you want the colors to combine. You can alternate stripes to get a blended effect. Or you can do color blocks like wedges or blocks. Entrelac is and especially handy stash buster since you have lots of small sections that can be knit in a new color. The number of colors you use is only limited by your love of weaving in ends. If you don’t like weaving in ends, change colors only once a layer. If you don’t mind weaving, then you can change colors every block after the set up row.

Finally, experiment. I have ended up with some really lovely projects from colors I never thought would combine. If the colors don’t combine well as stripes, try a circular cloth or one done in short row wedges.