A Cozy Knit to Calm Your Mind

This time of year is full of fun, but it also can be full of stress, with tons of activities going on and a seemingly never-ending list of things to do.

It’s not the time for some super complicated, stressful knitting project. It’s the time to take it easy and knit something simple and lovely that’s just for you.

Enter Idle Hands, this pretty, boxy cardigan knitting pattern from Winter’s Weather Knits.

It’s worked holding a strand of sock yarn and a boucle/fuzzy/mohair style yarn to make a sport weight gauge, or you could just use sport weight yarn if you don’t want the fuzz factor.

The sweater is worked from the bottom up in one piece using linen stitch, which is relatively mindless once you get going. It’s definitely meditative and great for when you need a moment of calm or something to do with your hands while you’re relaxing in front of the TV.

There’s a lot of positive ease built into this sweater to make it even cozier. The smallest size, for example, has a 42.5 inch chest circumference, and it is meant to be worn with 13 to 15 inches of positive ease. There are 9 sizes included in the pattern with the largest finished bust on the sweater being 74.5 inches. It has no finishing for the edges and is meant to be worn open.

Of course if you don’t want that much positive ease you can choose a smaller size that will give you less ease if that’s available to you. You can also choose to make it with short sleeves or three quarter sleeves (or longer if you want). You can also adjust the length to make it more of a coat or even make it shorter if you like. Isn’t it nice when you can make a project however you like?

You can get the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Winter’s Weather Knits]

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While I was knitting this baby blanket, my husband was curious as to why I was knitting a baby blanket when there are no babies in the near future that we know of. (What we know is kind of relative since some friends told us they were adopting a couple of years ago with less than a month’s notice.)

I said, “well, I had the yarn.” Which is true. I bought a ball of Bernat Sport Ombre Twist yarn when JoAnn was closing and it seemed like just the thing to make a baby blanket.

And at more than 1,000 yards per skein, I figured a one-skein baby blanket would be a fun project to try.

It actually worked out perfectly, with the blanket coming out a good size. With the border it’s 36 inches/91.4 cm square, which is what I’m usually aiming for when I knit baby blankets but I rarely hit it because I also rarely check gauge for a baby blanket since it’s usable whatever size it is.

I had enough yarn to work the blanket and two rounds of single crochet as a border, with a few yards of yarn to spare.

If you don’t crochet you can leave off the border or do an applied I-cord or some kind of knit border, but you might need to use a contrasting yarn for that.

The blanket uses sand stitch, which is an easy knitting stitch that only uses knits and purls. It’s sort of stockinette on one side and alternating knits and purls on the other. There’s some debate as to which side of this stitch pattern is considered the front, but the good news is they both look good.

You can grab this free pattern over at Our Daily Craft. Stitch it up even if you don’t know of any babies coming soon. You never know, and it can always be a charity project if all else fails.

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