The yarn needed for this pattern is variable, You can make it as big or as small as you like, and use up all your bits and bobs.
I had two skeins of wool yarn with splices in it. I hate splices. So when I take my yarn from skein to ball, I always cut it when I find a rough splice.

These particular skeins wound up in 7 balls of varying sizes.
I found some other wool yarn in complementary (and complimentary) colors, and just started knitting, from smallest ball to largest, and stopping when I felt like changing colors. As you can tell, I changed with a color order in mind, but random would look great too.