Add a Gorgeous Little Knit Cover to Your Summer Outfits

Sometimes it’s hard to keep wearing your knits in spring and summer if you’re the type who has a warm nature. You can knit tees and tank tops, and even summer dresses, but it can also be nice to have a little knit cover to throw on in the evening when it’s a little cool or when you step into somewhere that’s cooler than outside.

The Stratum pullover/poncho by Yumiko Alexander is a great example of this type of garment. It’s just two big rectangles sewn together at the shoulders, with a little bit of sewing to make a “sleeve” on each side.

It’s worked with two fine weight yarns held together to make a DK weight (or you could start with a DK weight if you happen to have some handy). This makes it super light so it shouldn’t make you feel hot to wear it.

There are lace panels across the top of each piece, with a faux seam down the center to break up the eyelets. There’s also lace running down the sides, forming the edge of the sleeve and the sides of the garment. It’s rated for intermediate knitters because of the lace, but if you’ve worked lace before you should be fine with this project.

The piece is one size in width (43 inches), with three options for the length: 16, 20 and 24 inches, so you can decide if you want it cropped, long or somewhere in between. There are instructions for how to make the panels narrower or wider if you need to as well.

This would be a great little garment to wear over summer dresses or even to your fancy summer events when you want to wear something special that you made.

The pattern is available in English and Japanese, and you can get a copy on Ravelry.

[Photo: Yumiko Alexander.]

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I know plaid or tartan patterns are really Scottish, not Irish, but there’s something about this time of year (almost St. Patrick’s Day as I write this) that gets me thinking about plaid knitting patterns.

Plaid is fun to knit any time of year, of course, and can be a fun way to combine colors you wouldn’t normally use, or wouldn’t normally put together. Let’s check out some fun plaid knitting patterns!

This plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore on Etsy is a great one for dipping your toes into plaid as a technique or a design feature in your home. It makes plaid as easy as it can get but having you knit stripes horizontally but the vertical stripes are added with duplicate stitch.

I still miss a plaid sweater I had when I was in high school, but the Lumber Sweater pattern from The Knit is On // Mette Christensen is probably the closest I’ve seen to being able to re-create it without writing my own pattern. This design uses two strands of lace weight held together to make a sport weight yarn, which makes mixing the colors that much easier. It comes in six sizes and is available on Ravelry.

I love plaid for accessories like scarves and cowls, and I found a couple of great plaid cowl knitting patterns for you. The first is the Handy Ma’am Cowl from Catherine Clark, which is worked flat and seamed. It uses five colors of light fingering weight yarn and is fully lined in a solid color to make it super cozy to wear. Get the pattern on Ravelry.

Then there’s the Thegither Cowl from Amy Palko, which uses stripes and stranded colorwork to make the plaid design in three colors of fingering weight yarn. The pattern is worked in sections; for a longer cowl work three sections instead of two. There’s also a scarf version where the colors stay consistent if you want a mellower project. Check it out on Ravelry.

The Buffalo Plaid Baby Blanket from Little Barn Owl Store is a classic two color plaid that’s easy to knit and looks adorable. This one is worked in classic red and white but you can change it up to suit the baby’s room.

Speaking of blankets, I love this vintage plaid throw pattern from Chickie by the Sea. The original pattern actually called for Red Heart knitting worsted, which looks similar to Super Saver, but you can use any worsted weight yarn you like to complete this retro look.

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