A Beyond-Basic Vest to Knit for Fall or Spring

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.

One of the fun things about knitters is that we will use a holiday theme on any kind of project. From Easter bunny socks to Christmas sweaters, there’s no combination of holiday motif and knitwear genre we won’t combine.

Case in point: Halloween cowls.

This fun cowl from Sweet Vireo Designs features large carved pumpkins and little cats and skulls. It uses two colors of DK weight yarn and I love the multicolored yarn for the background color on this one. And the braids! So cute.

Spooky Season by Jocelyn Tunney (also on Ravelry) uses fingering weight yarn in two colors to make a design with crescent moons and eyes. There are two circumferences and two heights available so you can make it a neck hugger or a slightly bigger project if you like.

Make more moons with the Broom Riding Cowl from Vanessa Ewing Knits. This two color pattern looks extra fun with a multicolored yarn for the colorwork, but you can use a solid as well. It calls for DK weight yarn but there is also a fingering weight version if you have some yarn in your stash you want to use.

Jinx Made has another fun Halloween cowl, this time covered in skulls. South Philly Skulls uses DK weight yarn and comes in two lengths, and there’s also a matching hat pattern, both of which can be found on Ravelry.

The Ghost Stories cowl from Melissa Knit Wear is a two-color cowl with ghosts of different sizes on the body. It uses DK weight yarn, and average sized skeins will allow you to get two cowls out of two skeins. It also calls for stitch markers to help you keep your place in the chart.

Or stitch up a cowl with a giant bat on it. The Nightling Cowl from Jen Immer uses DK weight yarn in two colors and has moons and a large bat on it. This pattern can be found on Ravelry.

How about spooky trees? The Weirwood Cowl from Andrea Krüß-Anders is inspired by the weirwood trees in the Game of Thrones books, and is worked in two colors of fingering weight yarn. You can find this free pattern on Ravelry.

If a bandana cowl is more your thing, try Cowloween from Tellybean Knits (on Ravelry). This colorful design is worked from the top down and features pumpkins, ghosts and candy colored stripes, and is worked in a light fingering weight yarn. There are kid and adult sizes available.

Have you read?