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Free Knitting Pattern: Ladybug (or Ladybird)

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ladybug knittingI have to admit that this year was the first time I’d ever heard of a ladybug called a ladybird, but it is, in fact, a thing. Julie Cartwright from My Life in Stitches has a really cute free pattern for a ladybird, or ladybug if you want to go with the less-poetic name.

Whatever you call it you’re going to want to knit one of these cuties. It uses just scraps of yarn and the body is just 26 rows long. Add wings and crocheted legs and you’ve got a cute little embellishment to add to kitchen or bath items (I think it would be really cute sewn to an apron), decorate a gift or even put on a summer-themed scrapbook page. Adorable!

[Photo by Julie Cartwright.]

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Comments

  1. Ladybird is the British word – the nursery rhyme “Ladybird, Ladybird fly away home, your hose is on fire and your children are flown” I though was universal?

Have you read?

Knit a Hat with a Flock of Chickens

It’s well known (among knitters, anyway) that knitters seem to love chickens as a motif and a subject of our knitting projects. The Emotional Support Chicken and all the other chicken knitting patterns are just the beginning of our devotion to farmyard friends. 

For example, there’s Farmer Dennis’ Chicken Hat. This free pattern from Stacy Black is a simple worsted weight beanie sized for adults and decorate with a couple of little rounds of colorwork fences and a flock of chickens strutting around the body of the hat. 

You don’t need a lot of any of the colors for the chickens, their facial features or the fences, so this is a great project for using little leftover bits from other projects. The main color for the body of the hat is less than a skein using the yarn suggested, so you might just have everything you need in your house to start stitching up this hat right away. 

The colorwork is presented as a chart, with a 16 stitch section that repeats around the body of the hat. All the color changes are shown on the chart but I think it would be easier to knit the whole chicken in the chicken color and add the eye, beak and other features using duplicate stitch when the knitting is done. That way you don’t have to carry those yarns around the whole hat for just a few stitches. 

As the name suggests, the original hat was given to a farmer who shared their eggs, but anyone who raises chickens or just has a thing for the fowl is sure to love this cute hat. It wouldn’t be too difficult for someone new to stranded knitting or reading charts to make, either, so if that’s you, give it a try. 

The pattern is available for free on Ravelry. 

[Photo: Stacy Black]

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