Striped Stash Busting Afghan

About 2 years ago, my mom brought me a bunch of yarn she picked up at a thrift store. I had no idea what to do with most of it. I donated some to a craft thrift store in Nashville, but I decided to try to use up two types, 6 balls of Lion Brand Wool Ease in Fisherman (cream), and 5 skeins of ‘Wintuck’ from Montgomery Ward. The Wool Ease had price tags of $1.99 from Rich’s discount store, which went out of business in 1996, so it must have been purchased before then. The Montogmery Ward Wintuck had no price tags on it, but the logo & packaging look like they are from the late 60’s or the 70’s.

Since it uses 3 strands of yarn held together, I decided to make the 5 1/2 Hour Throw, which I’ve made previously for sheepBlue. It’s a fun, fast pattern, though it definitely takes longer than 5 1/2 hours if you’re not using a 19mm hook. (I found a 10mm hook perfect for 3 strands of yarn.) The Wool Ease had clear yardage lengths on it, but the Wintuck didn’t give any yardage anywhere on the band. I started with just the cream & raspberry, but they looked so disparate when held together, that I dug through my stash till I found a yarn that had elements of both colors; a skein of Shawl in a Ball in Lotus Blossom, which has a cream cotton core, with a fuzzy ombre of colors between raspberry and teal.

By the time I was nearly through my 4th skein of raspberry, I had an afghan that was 45" wide, but just 23" long. So I put aside the last skein of raspberry, and started playing around with what else I had on hand. Since i had so much more Wool Ease, I used 2 strands of the ivory for 4 rows. I dug through my stash some more and found a leftover skein of Caron Simply Soft in Ocean, a nice deep teal that echoed the Shawl in a Ball. I did 10 rows of Ocean, then another 4 of double ivory. I used up the last of the Ocean in another 6 rows, another 4 row band of ivory, and then used up the last full skein of raspberry (and a bit more leftover from another ball) doing 7 more rows of V-Stitch, and 1 row of single crochet. I ran out of raspberry with just 8 sc left to go, and filled it in with double ivory. I don’t think it will be noticeable with the fringe added to both ends.

At some point in there, I ran out of Lotus Blossom, and then used up a skein of Shawl in a Ball in Moonstone. As I was nearing the end, I ran out of that two, and was running low on the Wool Ease, so I ordered 1 more Lotus Blossom, and 2 more Wool Ease to finish everything off. I did use up all of the Wool Ease, but I have about 2/3 of the last ball of Shawl in a Ball leftover. All in all, that means I used up 14 skeins of stash yarn, plus 2 1/3 skeins of purchased yarn!

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. It’s nice and chunky from the 3 strands of yarn, and though I’m usually all about symmetry, I like how the asymmetrical stripes look. The Shawl in a Ball gives an interesting ombre between the stark stripes, and has a hint of sparkle in it. Since I don’t have any specific plans for it, I’m going to give it to my MIL as a raffle prize for the upcoming family reunion.

17 Likes

Just for fun, here are some images from the Montgomery Ward Wintuck bands. I tried dating it using the logo as a reference, but I couldn’t find any record of the MW mirror image logo anywhere.

6 Likes

I LOVE that subtle shimmer going on! This is going to be an awesome snuggly couch blanket for someone, for sure.

2 Likes

It looks great! What a fabulous way to use up stash yarn and turn it into something to use and treasure. The asymmetrical stripe and blended colours are lovely and harmonious.

1 Like

It looks so great on the bed! Nice stash busting!

WOW! This is so dang cool! After you read about it, you can kind of see how the piece itself has a journey.

1 Like

I love that the stripes are off-center. It seems to fit the scrappy nature of using up stash, but in an organized neat way. Great job!

2 Likes

This turned out really beautifully. It’s like the asymmetry was planned all along!

1 Like

Turned out very interesting and lovely…and the process is just fabulous, so thanks for sharing that piece of your creative brain with us!

Wow…Montgomery Wards yarn…I still have some older yarns in my stash that I am using for small projects…but I still have my MW microwave given to us by my parents in 1979! And it still works!

1 Like

It looks like that logo was anywhere from 57-68..

The marling is beautiful.

1 Like

Pretty! It looks very squishy & warm.

1 Like