A Perfect Sweater to Knit if You’re New to Knitting Sweaters

There are so many great simple sweater knitting patterns out there, I feel like I say that patterns are great for beginners or for your first sweater all the time.

Honestly, I love these super basic sweater patterns even though I’ve probably knit 20 or more adult sweaters in my career. Give me a simple stockinette stitch, top-down, circular knit sweater any day. It’s great for TV knitting once you have a grasp on the shaping or when that part is done, and it’s a perfect blank slate project to add colored stripes, textured stripes, use your odd balls, etc.

The Studio Sweater from Ysolda Teague is worked in DK or light worsted weight yarn with an integrated deep ribbed neckline. It has a circular yoke and a bit of short row shaping to lower the front of the sweater. After that raglan shaping is integrated for a better fit around the underarms.

Once the sleeves are separated it’s smooth stitching unless you want to add additional cup shaping for a better fit. There are regular and tall length options, and the straight fit makes it a gender-neutral style.

There are 12 size options in the pattern to fit a chest measurement ranging from 30 to 73 inches, or 70 to 183 cm. You can choose how much ease you want to include, and there are four cup shaping options (from no shaping to a G/H cup).

As the pattern notes say, this would be a great first easy sweater project or a simple, well-fitting sweater project for someone with more experience who just doesn’t want to put a lot of thought into the project. Either way you’re going to get a great sweater, and a good sweater pattern you’ll probably come back to again and again.

You can get a copy of the pattern from Ravelry.

[Photo: Ysolda Teague]

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Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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