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A Beyond-Basic Vest to Knit for Fall or Spring

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I’m sure I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating that in the past couple of years I have really come to appreciate the value of a good vest. Sometimes you want a little extra warmth on your body but you don’t necessarily need full sleeves. And sometimes your sweater isn’t quite cutting it so you can add a vest to bring a little more warmth to your outfit.

You can wear them over a T-shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, or a dress, and depending on the style sometimes you can even wear them tank top style without any shirt underneath. Totally up to you.

This vest is the Hlumelo Vest from Noma Ndlovu and it’s a deep V-neck worked in DK weight yarn. The horizontal stripes of the gridded colorwork pattern are knit as you go, while the vertical columns are purled to show placement for surface crochet chains that are worked after the knitting is done.

I know that sounds kind of weird but it’s a much easier way to add vertical colorwork that’s only one stitch wide. Otherwise, you’d have some very funky intarsia going on and lots more ends to weave in.

It’s worked from the top down and available in nine sizes, ranging from a chest measurement of 36.5 inches to 62.5 inches. It is recommended that the vest be worn with 2 to 8 inches of positive ease.

You can download the pattern from Ravelry.

Speaking of my obsession with vests, you can read more about that and get a super simple free vest knitting pattern here. This striped vest I shared recently is also super cute and has stripes that vary in both color and texture. How cool is that?

Looking for more Vest patterns to knit? Check out these Vest Knitting patterns on Etsy and these designs on the Sirdar website.

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Pumpkin Knitting Patterns

There are so many great pumpkin knitting patterns out there, and it looks like I haven’t done a roundup of pumpkin knitting patterns in a few years, so it’s high time for another one.

The Lancaster Pumpkins from Cuddle Bunny Knits on Etsy are classic, made with stockinette stitch in the round and using super bulky yarn. If you’ve never knit a pumpkin before, this is a good place to start.

Jazz it up a little bit by knitting ribbing instead of straight stockinette, which gives your knit pumpkin a little more texture, too. This one is form Jessies Knits on Etsy. This one is worked flat on straight needles and there are three size options to choose from.

Or try the Pumpkin Patch pattern from Blue Sky Fibers, which is a free pattern on Ravelry. It’s worked with two strands of worsted weight yarn held together to give your pumpkins a marled look, or you can keep it solid. 

There’s another free ribbed pumpkin knitting pattern at Yarnspirations that is really cute. These are knit flat and seamed, and they come in three different sizes. You can either stack them as a centerpiece to decorate a table or you can leave them separate. Or make a whole pumpkin patch and do some of both! I love that they chose unconventional colors so you can see you don’t have to be limited to orange when you knit up your pumpkins.

Made by Devrie on Etsy has these cute pumpkins with twisted stitches (they look like cables but it’s only moving one stitch at a time) that you can make in any size with any yarn you like.

The Twisted Heart Pumpkin for Etsy seller Percival Makes Things uses cables to make a heart shape on the side of the pumpkin. It’s worked in the round and the cable pattern is charted.

And while I was really sticking to plain pumpkins here, not knit jack o’lanterns, I can’t resist sharing this beaded jack o’lantern knitting pattern from Knit Cole Studio on Etsy. The base pumpkin is simple Stockinette and you can stitch on beads in whatever design you like to make your face, or keep it plain.

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