Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

A Super Simple Towel Knitting Pattern

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striped kitchen towel knitting patternI love projects that are useful, and if they can be both useful and stash busting that’s even better.

The In the Kitchen Taffy Towel from Be Sweet on Craftsy has the potential to be both of those things.

It’s a big kitchen towel worked in Garter Stitch in red, white and blue stripes, but of course you could pull out all your little bits of 100 % cotton yarn and make a bunch of random (or not) stripes to use up all those odd balls. And the pattern is free!

At 13 x 18 inches it’s already pretty good sized, but I kind of want to make one the size of my kitchen counter to use when I’m washing all the pots and pans. That would make doing chores just a little more fun, wouldn’t it?

[Photo: Be Sweet via Craftsy.]

This free pattern uses cotton yarn. Check out Lion brands new Re-Up Yarn
Lion Brand’s new recycled cotton, gives knitters and crocheters another reason to love working with cotton. It’s eco-friendly! It takes, on average, 20,000 liters of water to make 1 kilogram of cotton. By using one 70 gram ball of Re-Up you are saving 1,400 liters of water. So try Re-Up for your next cotton project: you’re going to love how it feels to work with and how it feels to help save the planet while doing the craft you love.  You can learn more about it here on this video below.
https://youtu.be/SP1e_baGcJs

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Patchwork Blanket Knitting Patterns

Any time of year is a good time for stash busting, but if you can combine it with knitting a blanket that will keep you warm when it (finally!) gets cooler that’s even better. Let’s take a look at some fun patchwork blanket knitting patterns. 

If you want to keep it super simple, you can just make blocks of garter stitch and sew them together, like the beginner’s patchwork baby blanket from Mini Baa Baa or the color block blanket from Make and Do Crew. Both projects are worked in strips and sew together, with the baby version calling for two strands of DK or light worsted weight yarn held together and the larger one using bulky yarn. 

Add a little more texture with the mixed blocks of the cottage quilt throw from Mama in a Stitch. This one combines garter stitch and seed stitch and uses worsted weight yarn. She used a crochet join to make the chains on top of the blocks, but you can join them however you like. It calls for eight colors but you can use what you have, and there are three size options. 

Get a real sampler style patchwork blanket with this design from Knit Sew Make. It calls for worsted weight yarn and has four size options. All of the patterns just use knit and purl stitches so this one is still pretty easy for beginners. 

If you want a more complex colorwork project that will keep you entertained all season, try the Peace by Piece blanket pattern from Needle and Feather. This one is made up of two color colorwork blocks and calls for worsted weight yarn. You can choose to use just a few of the blocks and repeat them more often, or make multiples of the whole set. 

The knitted patchwork recipe from Martine Ellis (free on Ravelry) uses mitered squares in fingering weight yarn, so it’s perfect for using up all your leftover sock yarn and mini skeins. This one is a tutorial more than a pattern so you can make your blanket as big as you like or keep going until you run out of yarn. 

Susan B. Anderson’s 100 Squares blanket (find it on Ravelry) has a lot of mitered squares, too, but they’re arranged in fun ways and includes some quilt inspired designs as well. This one also is a bit of method more than pattern but it sure looks like a lot of fun for using all the leftovers. 

Of course you can totally improvise a patchwork blanket using the yarn and stitches you like, but I hope these patterns inspire you to look at your leftover yarn in a new way.